There is no sense in trying to be diplomatic about this: If you still support Donald Trump for president in August of 2016, I have zero respect for your thoughts, ideas, and beliefs.
I might like you. I may enjoy being around you. I may even consider you an important part of my life. But failing the Trump Test ensures that I have absolutely zero respect for your views, your (apparantly nonexistent) critical thinking skills, and pretty much anything you have to say about anything more important than your favorite fast food French fries.
Yes, I realize that by opening this way anyone who supports or who is thinking about supporting Donald Trump will not only be insulted and offended, and that I may lose the goodwill of some people in my life. I also realize they will be disinclined to listen to anything I have to say in this piece. They’ll totally tune me out right away.
I don’t care. At this late point in the game, if you still think that Trump is a candidate who deserves your vote, I’m not particularly concerned about how you feel or what you think, and sincerely doubt you have the ability to say anything that will make me inclined to think that you are someone worth listening to on topics more complicated than the best color sneakers. The rest of this post will explain why, but feel free to walk away now if you like. It may prevent you from hating me. Besides, as a Trump supporter, it’s unlikely any of what I’m about to say matters to you, anyway.
Note that I’ve packed this post with links to sources, the vast majority to legitimate and respectable news outlets rather than the insane little blogs you’ll often see pop up on your Facebook feed. You know the ones I mean; the nutty garbage your weirdo friends post that tends to be full of breathless speculation but light on actual sources and facts. They are all too prevalent on social media. My views and claims here are time and again backed up by verifiable facts. And if you quibble with one point, well, there are another 90 or so to deal with, you cherry-picking bastard.
Oh, and yes, the quotes I use as subheadings are all from Trump, and they are all real. So on with the show…
“There has to be some form of punishment [for women who seek abortions]”
A year ago, Donald Trump was a laughable longshot candidate who got attention by pushing buttons and engaging people’s misguided sense of outrage. It was the usual stuff you often hear from fringe candidates: Brown people are taking our jobs, brown people want to destroy us, we need the rule of law (for brown people), and lots of vague nonsense about The System and I’ll Stop Corruption and so on. It was hard to take him seriously then — even his own party didn’t take him seriously — and most people seemed to believe, quite reasonably, that when people began paying attention, the reality show buffoon who was all bluster and no substance would be forced out of the race.
But a funny thing happened on the way to November 2016. Donald Trump kept going.
He did it by riding a wave of fear, xenophobia, not-so-subtle bigotry, and the kind of empty but effective rhetoric demagogues having been using to rile up crowds for thousands of years. Trump supporters routinely deny these charges, of course, even when, say, his decades long history of barely-concealed racism is well-documented and undeniable. And believe me, Trump as a bigot is only the tip of a very ugly iceberg. We’ll get into that below.
Perhaps more concerning than Trump’s deep failings as a candidate is the fact that this guy still has supporters. It would be easy to lay into the long list of the idiotic policy stances, dumbfoundingly stupid comments, and sheer lunacy he has offered thus far — and I’m about to — but the truth is that Trump supporters do not care. Every criticism of Trump is met with, “Bu- bu- but Hillary! Benghazi!” (often without a damn bit of understanding of what the hell actually happened at Benghazi). When Donald Trump said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”, he was tragically correct. I’ve seen it in action too many times.
Hell, just as I was proofreading this piece, he floated the idea of taking up arms against Hillary Clinton. Such statements should be frightening in their implication — the New York Daily News called for him to end his campaign following the comment — but make no mistake, his supporters will find inventive new ways to play dumb or to deflect with “bu-bu-but Hillary!” His campaign is already doing it, claiming he was simply urging Second Amendment supporters to vote as a block against Clinton — a clear lie and a terrible attempt at spin, since Trump was unambiguously talking about what would happen after she was elected, not before. The truth is that he was probably just really shitty at getting his thoughts out and accidentally implied that people could resort to violence. With that in mind, I’ll ask something I’ll return to throughout this piece: is that really a trait you want in a president? Isn’t a propensity for doing that sort of thing kind of dangerous? And doesn’t his inability to simply say, “I misspoke” like a mature adult say something important about him?
“If (Hillary Clinton) gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
Having to find something inside yourself that allows you to be comfortable with a politician’s flaws is par for the course, no doubt about it. There are no flawless candidates at this level. Voting for Obama, Romney, McCain, Bush, Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dole, all of them required one degree of nose-holding or another. This year, the Democrats have Hillary Clinton, a candidate few Democrats are truly excited about for good reason: for all her accomplishments, she comes across as stiff, out of touch, and more interested in ambition than service (not to mention the fact that “honesty” and “Clinton” are not exactly peanut butter and chocolate). There’s also the incredibly uncomfortable fact that she’s a Clinton — and no, I’m not referring to the idiotic conspiracy theory that people who don’t support her are killed. Put away your tinfoil hats, you lunatics. You’re almost as bad as Flat Earthers. I’m instead referring to my distaste for political dynasties, something I feel is strongly contrary to what the United States should be about, Roosevelts or no Roosevelts. We don’t do royalty in the U.S., or at least we shouldn’t, yet much like the Bushes, Clinton has essentially been treated as de facto royalty that we must grudgingly accept.
Yes, a couple of scandals have followed her, notably Buh-buh-buh-Benghazi! and bu-bu-bu-but emails! No, none have been able to stick despite over two decades of the right trying to make something stick on her. Unsurprisingly, this is hand-waved away as being part of some vast conspiracy to protect her. The media is in on it, the FBI is in on it, everyone is in on it. Despite few people actually liking her or particularly wanting her to be the face of the Democratic Party, even within her own party, the theory goes that a huge, monolithic system has been constructed to protect her at all costs, up to and including murder. The Clintons can’t get away with blow jobs, but they can leave a trail of bodies in their wake.
Riiiight.
So anyway, political candidates usually suck in one way or another, and Hillary is no exception. Despite the knee-jerk reaction of many Trump supporters, who assume that if you’re anti-Trump you must be pro-Clinton, I have no interest in supporting her or defending her. Saying “Trump is awful” is not the same thing as saying “Clinton is great.” In fact, I’d say she’s the worst Democratic candidate since Gary Hart. In any other year, she’d spell doom for the Dems’ chances. A good candidate she ain’t.
And yet when it comes to candidates that make you wonder what we’re doing in a handbasket, even she pales in comparison next to Donald Trump, a man who has made a mockery of our election process and who has revealed millions of people to be buffoons, and a not insignificant percentage of them to be bigots, too.
Where do you even begin with him? That he is unfit to be president is not even a question for any reasonable person, no matter your political leanings.
I mean, he doesn’t understand why we don’t use nukes on our enemies, a view he now denies despite the fact that he’s said similar things before. Seriously, the man is pondering why we don’t nuke people. That alone is reason enough to never let him within 100 miles of the White House. That kind of thinking is fucking insane and dangerous.
In a sane world, that would be the only reason needed for people to realize this man is not fit for office. But it’s only the start.
“You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass.”
He’s a thin-skinned, immature manchild. His inability to take criticism makes him such a poor fit for the world’s most important diplomatic position I have a hard time believing anyone can envision him as a world leader. He’s so sensitive to criticism, he attacks the parents of dead soldiers. He lashes out like a child when criticized. He felt the need to defend the size of his dick during a national debate. He has pondered damaging the First Amendment because he doesn’t like people being critical of him. He has carried a grudge about a childish insult for 25 years and counting. In example after example after example, he has shown himself incapable of accepting criticism, a petulant child who takes to Twitter the instant someone gives him the side eye — and yet he’s running for a position that is arguably the most criticized on planet Earth. No one, no one, faces more scrutiny and criticism than an American president. (This analysis of his Tweeting speaks volumes.)
Do his supporters not see what a disastrous bout of buffoonery they are setting our country up for? Are they incapable of understanding the damage such a pouty, thin-skinned person can do to international diplomacy?
The answer, of course, is that they don’t care.
Just as they don’t care about his long, troubling history with bigotry. Oh, they are quick to dismiss it when it comes up. You’ll hear “race card” trotted out and all manner of back-breaking, physics-defying twisting about to avoid confronting the uncomfortable truth: Donald Trump is a loathsome bigot.
And if you support him, sorry, but you’re at least halfway down that road by proxy. His history of bigotry is not ambiguous.
“I have a great relationship with the blacks.”
At this point, this is another charge that no reasonable person can deny once faced with the facts. Let’s set aside the fact that he has circulated material from white supremacist groups on more than one occasion (though we shouldn’t set it aside) (and yeah, Trump supporters, if you’re circulating images literally and verifiably created by white supremacist groups, that’s kind of fucked up and you’re kind of loathsome if you try to excuse it). As a response to the repeated accusations of racism against Trump, a silly meme has circulated saying, “Donald Trump has been in the public eye for 30 years and he was never once accused of being racist by anyone until he decided to run against Democrats.”
Except that’s complete bullshit. He’s been repeatedly accused of being a racist since the 1970s. The Department of Justice came after him and his company in the early 1970s for alleged racial discrimination. The company settled. He was accused of racism again in the 1980s for his response to the Central Park jogger case. Even though the accused black youths were exonerated with DNA evidence, as recently as 2013 he was still hinting that they were guilty. He was accused again in the early 1990s in John R. O’Donnell’s Trumped! The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump, where he’s quoted as saying “laziness is a trait in blacks” and saying he hates letting blacks count his money. A few years after the book was published he told Playboy, “The stuff O’Donnell wrote about me is probably true.”
Did you catch that? “The stuff O’Donnell wrote about me is probably true.”
That’s just the stuff concerning African Americans, too. He’s more than happy to engage in bigoted bullshit concerning others as well. For example, in 1993 he was accused of racism in his casino dealings with Native American tribes. In 2000, he settled a suit that stemmed from anonymous ads he took out that included rhetoric like, “The St. Regis Mohawk Indian record of criminal activity is well documented.” His xenophobic and decidedly anti-American views on Muslims are well-documented. Same with his fear-mongering concerning Mexicans, which wasn’t helped by his tone deaf “I love Hispanics” taco bowl tweet, which came off more like your awkward racist-in-denial uncle uttering cringe-worthy gems at a family gathering than a man ready to take the most powerful office in the world. He even kept a book of Hitler speeches by his bed. Yes, you read that right. Frickin’ Hitler speeches.
This is what tone deafness looks like
I still haven’t gotten to his laughable status as an Obama Birther, either, nor his repeated insinuations that Obama is a secret Muslim (which he continues to imply to this day), his attacks on a judge because of the judge’s ethnicity, his recent suggestion that a Muslim mother didn’t speak alongside her husband at the DNC because she wasn’t “allowed” to (it doesn’t take a genius to read between the lines there), and so many more it’s making me dizzy.
An accusation here or poorly chosen turn of phrase there that gets blown out of proportion is one thing. This is quite another. It’s a decades long pattern of racial and cultural insensitivity, bias, and bigotry by a man who refuses to back down from it, refuses to acknowledge the reality of what he says and does, and who even hesitated to condemn the KKK. There is a reason why a steady stream of white nationalists support Donald Trump. The head of the American Nazi Party recently called a Trump victory “a real opportunity for people like white nationalists.” There just isn’t any denying what this man is. If you attempt to explain it away … well, go see the first few paragraphs of this piece.
Straight up, if you are supporting him, you are either supporting these views or are willing to ignore them. Good job. You’re kind of loathsome.
Even his own party recognizes that Trump doesn’t give a moment’s thought to anyone who isn’t an angry white person. Izzy Santa, the RNC’s former Hispanic media director, told Buzzfeed, “There’s no infrastructure and no plan because the Trump camp doesn’t want to take diverse voters into account.”
“I would bring back waterboarding and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”
Tragically, Trump doesn’t even need to be elected to do damage to this country. He already has. His rhetoric has already helped poison the well (and it’s not the first time over the years he’s been accused of that). He has made bigots comfortable with being bigots again for the first time in decades. Bigotry and racism never died, of course — if you think black Americans don’t live by a different set of rules in this country, you’d give Helen Keller a run for her money — but at least we had reached a point where we all agreed that it was shameful to be a racist. Bigots were encouraged to shut their damn mouths, their poison shared only in private or with knowing glances and nods. Yet now, Trump is making bigotry mainstream again. The damage is done and it’s getting worse by the day.
President Obama has been accused of being “the most racist president in history” for having the temerity to acknowledge that racism still exists and remains a problem to be addressed. No, I don’t understand the amazing mental hoops someone has to jump through to come up with that kind of nonsense, but it’s an incredibly common sentiment.
Meanwhile, a repeated, clear, unquestionable bigot is the frontrunner for the GOP and all his supporters can muster when it’s pointed out it, “Bu-bu-but Hillary!”
That’s always the answer to criticism about Trump. Talk about his dishonesty instead of his race-baiting and you’ll get the same response. Point out Trump’s long list of lies and false statements to a Trump supporter and the response is not unlike a child who immediately points to another kid when caught doing something wrong: “But Johnny spilled a glass of milk” from a kid who just got caught chucking rocks at cars. It makes you wonder about the maturity level of the people who resort to it.
But I digress. Trump’s list of lies grows by the day, and he never backs off from them. He loves to tell lies in bunches. Court depositions lay bare his propensity to exaggerate and spin untruths (in this specific case, he was caught fibbing 30 times). He claimed to have seen a video of hundreds of Muslims celebrating in New York after 9-11. No such video exists. When a journalist correctly reported that no such video existed, Trump mocked the reporter’s disability. He now lies about having done it. He most recently claimed to have seen video of money being delivered to Iran by plane. No such video exists. PolitiFact, an independent fact-checking organization, examined statements made by an array of candidates since 2007. Hillary Clinton is a politician, and as such she’s not particular honest. Some 50% of her statements were rated as “half true” or worse. It’s not a flattering portrait – until you look at Trump, who spouts half true or worse comments over 90% of the time. Over 60% are rated flat-out FALSE.
The list of Trump B.S. quickly becomes overwhelming. And yes, there is more.
He has claimed to never settle lawsuits. That is a lie. He has said we have a $500b trade deficit with China. Wrong. He said, “I never met Putin. I don’t know who Putin is.” Total rubbish. Back in 2011, he claimed that people who went to Obama’s school never actually saw him there. False. Also in 2011, he claimed Kuwait never paid back the U.S. for ousting Saddam Hussain. Not true. He has recently claimed he never said Japan should have nukes. Yes he did. He claimed people knew about the San Bernadino attacks in advance and did not turn the attackers in. Pure fiction. He said Clinton and the Democrats rigged the debates so that they would take place at the same time as NFL games, thus sapping away viewers. More fiction. He shared some racially-loaded crime statistics on Twitter. Yes, they were made up. Just as he has aired vague accusations about Obama’s religion, he has done the same about Clinton, claiming we know nothing about her beliefs. He’s either ignorant or a liar.
“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
The list keeps going. I could spend another hour listing them and linking to verifiable sources, but let’s be honest, the effort would be futile. Supporters will dismiss this in the usual way. PolitiFact is surely biased if Trump does not look good by their standards. The same accusation is often hurled at Snopes, in semi-viral articles that are incredibly light on substance and incredibly dense with vague accusations. These accusations are easily dismantled. In fact, when Snopes was independently investigated to determine whether or not they are secretly a biased site in the pocket of the Democrats, they got an A.
Perhaps more importantly, Trump supporters could simply fact-check the fact-checkers and PROVE that PolitiFact and Snopes get it wrong on him. They could dismantle a Snopes debunking with good sources, verified facts, and a lack of the weasel words all too common on far right and far left blogs. Note that they rarely do. That’s telling.
Trump, meanwhile, continues to spin whoppers and his supporters continue to ignore them. His status as an honest straight-talker was dismantled last year – longer ago, if you’ve paid attention to his career – but he offers so many untruths each one just gets lost in the sea of them. To steal John Oliver’s analogy, it’s like a bed of nails. Step on just one nail and it will screw up your world. Step on a dense bed of them and no one nail will pierce your flesh.
And these aren’t vague accusations by fringe lunatics that are dogging him, similar to “Hillary murders anyone in her way.” This is public stuff that can be verified by anyone with an 8th grade diploma, an Internet connection, and ten minutes of time on their hands.
Yet the response when these lies and misstatements are pointed out is pretty consistent: the media must be biased against him. He’s already trying to build a case that the election is rigged against him, too, and his supporters are eating it up, because obviously if everyone in their echo chamber likes Trump, the whole country must be united behind him, right? The only way the media can say otherwise is bias.
The facts say otherwise. Reality is biased against him.
Genuine conservatives are struggling with how to deal with his untruths, though even as early as February commentators were pointing out that it just doesn’t matter. Politicians lie. Every candidate in this election so far has some lies on their record, Trump’s Democratic opponent included. That’s because politicians basically suck. That Trump himself is so many miles ahead of everyone else in that regard should be troubling to any reasonable person. Even MORE troubling should be his inability to admit when he is wrong or when he spoke falsely. Remember when you were a kid and you got in more trouble for lying about what you did wrong than you did for what you actually did wrong? Important lesson about honesty, maturity, and owning up to your actions there, one Trump never learned. Even Bill Clinton, who told a huge whopper on national TV and lied right to our faces, admitted to using weasel words in an attempt to lie without really lying. Bill Clinton is not a noble man, and those actions were pretty goddamn scummy, but at least he was adult enough to admit that he screwed up.
Trump, on the other hand, has both a deep history of untruths and a complete inability to admit when he’s made a mistake. He actually bragged on Jimmy Fallon that he has never had to apologize because he’s never wrong.
This is not a trait a president should have.
And even without all this bigotry and all these half-truths, he’d still be kind of a shitty candidate.
This is a guy whose campaign is largely based on sowing the seeds of fear and talking in big, broad terms about how awesome he is — no great surprise, given that his greatest claim to fame is that he stamps his name on everything he touches. He repeatedly tells people how he’s one of the smartest people around (and in really childish ways), which is hilarious because actual smart people don’t need to tell you they’re smart. It’s immature, embarrassing, and nonsensical. His bragging is weird and juvenile, and is readily debunked to boot. And like a bloodthirsty child, he not only endorses torture, but claims he’d order U.S. troops to commit war crimes and appears to endorse mass executions. This goes beyond “would be poor at international relations” and is deeply, firmly in “international disaster” territory.
Did a 14-year-old write this?
Even the stuff that he supposedly has going for him turns out to be a lot of smoke and mirrors. He and his supporters tout the delicious Kool Aid of his business success, but that’s a load of hot air. Not only has he enjoyed a string of high profile business failures, when you run the numbers you discover he inherited a ton of cash and couldn’t even outperform the market. That doesn’t speak well to his skills as a business genius. He’s fantastic at selling HIMSELF and his name, but as the Washington Post points out, when it comes to actually netting a return on his business investments, “Trump’s returns are less even than those of an ordinary investor saving for retirement.”
So much for his business acumen.
“I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.”
Amazingly, we’re not done yet. Yes, there are more nails to add to this bed. No other presidential candidate in history has been involved in more lawsuits than Donald Trump. It’s not just because he’s a businessman, either, because we’ve had businessmen-turned-presidents before, and loads of candidates who ran on their business background. Besides, if history has been any indication, businessmen don’t make good presidents (which the New York Times also pointed out in 2012). And racism? Don’t worry, he has an equally extensive history with sexism, too. His boorish behavior has often been discussed. He mocks the disabled and then, like a child, attempts to weasel his way out of what he did by playing word games. He’s a marital cheater who has repeatedly said creepy things about his daughter. He bizarrely pretended to be his own publicist, a charge he denies even though there are tapes of his calls. He got repeated deferments to avoid Vietnam, then had the gall to shame a genuine Vietnam War hero. Months later, he still won’t back down or apologize. If that seems childish, perhaps there is a reason for that: An analysis of his speeches shows that he speaks like a child — which is no doubt a great deal of his appeal to many, even if they don’t realize it. It means they can understand him. (Yes, Trump Supporter, I’m saying what you think I’m saying.) And for what it’s worth, Trump likely thinks the same: in 1999, he said poor people are morons, and earlier this year he said, “I love the poorly educated.”
Of course he does. They are on the cusp of launching him into the White House.
All of this makes his absolutely unfit to be President of the United States. There really isn’t much debate possible on that, because no thinking person can explain all this away without a hand-waving dismissal that amounts to sticking your fingers in your ears and saying, “La la la la la not listening!”
Look, I’ve got little good to say about Hillary Clinton. She’s an unexciting establishment candidate who is just a continuation of the same old political system we’ve had for ages. She’s unlikely to offer any sort of positive change for the country, her positions are fairly weak, and she can’t shrug aside sleaziness with the aplomb her charismatic husband managed to do. She’s just not inspiring in any way and she’s got the honesty of a typical career politician, which is to say if she tells you it’s raining you’re still going to open the window and check yourself. She’s the epitome of an establishment suit. All status quo all the time.
Yet she’s also not a clumsy, self-aggrandizing blowhard of a bigot who relies on fear and division to rally her supporters, so she’s got that going for her.
“She does have a very nice figure. If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
If you supported Trump when he first got rolling in 2015, I get it. He touted himself as a guy who wanted to break a corrupt system. That probably felt exciting. His need to put TRUMP on everything in huge letters gave him the illusion of being successful, and that’s appealing. I get that, too. I understand why early on you may have been intrigued by him.
But at this juncture, if you are actually paying attention and you still support him, it’s unlikely I will ever again respect your views and beliefs on just about anything, and it’s not out of the question that I will never again respect your intelligence. You may be a friend or family member, I may like you and consider you an important part of my life — I can separate those things from your (frankly baffling) beliefs — but I can’t muster up a damn bit of respect for anything you believe or say. I just can’t. Given all of the above and then some, it’s just too impossible a hill to climb.
This isn’t merely about disagreeing with someone politically. I’ve disagreed with many, many people I respect over the years, and will do so again many times in the years ahead. I continue to respect those people and their views. In fact, some of the people whose views I respect the most fundamentally disagree with me on some key issues, and that’s fine. It’s what makes the world go ’round. There is a lot to learn from people who see the world a little different than you do.
Yet this …
Donald Trump is not merely an embarrassing oaf (though he is certain that). He is a dangerous man. He’s dangerous for this country, he’s dangerous for the world, and on a personal level, he’s dangerous to how I see you.
Because if you support him now, in August 2016, after his last year of campaigning, well, I have to question every aspect of your judgment — and the answer is not a good one.
Bravo!!
Your opinion or not Trump is better choice then Clinton a thousand times over. You can give a leftist slant on your opinion and close your eyes to the true facts of what Clinton has done in her lifetime in politics and all of the corruption. Maybe you are more of a socialist and liked Bernie but guess what he also sold out to the big money. Luckily I have something between my ears that I use and don’t just follow the left wing news and see what they do.
Better for whom and better in what way? If you’re not a white person, in what way is the person who has retweeted white supremacists, has the endorsement of David Duke and many KKK leaders a “better choice”?
Remember when he said he wouldn’t codemn the KKK because he simply didn’t have enough information to form an opinion?
That was fucking hilarious.
Let’s get some facts straight, who founded the KKK oh wait it was the Democratic Party. Who has taken donations from the KKK this year and was enforced by them, Hillary Clinton. So before you sound even more like a moron get some facts correct. Also why do you feel the need to bring race into this at all unless you are at heart a racist.
And Matt with your racist BLM profile pic you clearly are the problem
Michael San Juan Fact: The KKK was founded 150 years ago. I don’t give a shit what the Democratic Party was doing 150 years ago. I give a shit what the people who are likely to be president in six months are going to do. Fact: Donald Trump has the endorsement of several KKK leaders RIGHT NOW. Also, if you’d care to use whatever it is you have between your ears to actually answer my question, that would be nice.
I feel the need to bring race into it because I’m not exactly white, so it effects me and my wildly ethnic family directly, you see.
I find it to be a hard and steadfast rule that anyone who wants to give the KKK the benefit of the doubt is suspect. I think it’s a pretty good rule, maybe one you should consider.
I love see dumb people make dumb comment so please keep up with you racist bullshit because I love laughing at you fools
Michael San Juan http://www.snopes.com/kkk-endorses-hillary-clinton/
Michael San Juan Also, you still haven’t answered my simple questions.
Gimme a second, I’m checking my watch and counting the seconds before it boils down to the phrase “AND WHY ISN’T THERE A WHITE ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION?”
Sorry Matt I’m doing his thing called working and keep always answer your dumb question . See I don’t live off the system and don’t support racist groups like you do. I have respect for law enforcement, military and all the things that you don’t
John H. Felix #ALLENTERTAINMENTTELEVISION
Michael San Juan You had time to type all of that, but don’t have time to say for whom Trump is a better choice? The thing between my ears is telling me that’s bullshit.
Michael San Juan I also like the implication that I don’t actually work. Nice.
John H. Felix good question but the better one is just how did you become so racist? You should ask yourself self when did you become a hate filed racist and you should learn to correct your thinking
Matt Linton no I didn’t imply anything you can sit behind your keyboard in your moms basement and do whatever you like
Michael San Juan “In your moms basement” – Oh, the many, many things wrong with this statement. I’m amazed that someone as stupid as you is related to someone as intelligent as Eric.
Racist against?
I can only hope that this is an epic troll on Eric’s part…
I think I became racist when schoolyard bullies held me down and punched me while their friends stood around me using their fingers to pull back the skin around their eyes to make them look more Asian.
It might have been a couple months back when a skinhead with a swastika tattoo on his neck stared at me for 20 minutes on a bus.
Could have been that one customer who came into my store, took one look at me and greeted me with a loud HERRO.
I’m half-white though so I like to think of it less as racism and more like introspection and objectivity.
I could keep going but you’d probably yell something about mothers and basements. My mom’s dead and I’m from California where there are no basements so you’re gonna have to find something else to go in on.
HOWEVER if I can make a suggestion: learn some new synonyms for the word dumb?
It would be good to create an entirely believable and existing troll brother.
To be fair RE: the HERRO guy, I *DO* work at a Dry Cleaners, so really, who is at fault here?
Also my Chinese/Filipino father’s nicknames for me as a kid were Chink, Gook and The Great White Buddha. Race has always been a crazy subject that I don’t take all that seriously.
OR DO I?
John not to sound DUMB but I know it sucks to be bullied and the list of names I was called was never ending. I have been asked if I’m Puerto Rican, Mexican, Iranian, Pakistani, and a few other Middle East countries and it never offend me. Race doesn’t affect a thing to me because I don’t see skin color (I’m color blind) nor would it matter. Playing the race card is weak and helps nothing but cause a divide in communities.
I’d prefer corruption over a figurehead and his followers who would rather see me literally murdered by their own hands?
Thanks, Eric. You said this far better than I could have ever said it.
Trump says he’s going to “cut taxes bigly”.
BIGLY
again….BIGLY
Republicans who continue to back Trump are sociopaths who are dedicated to seeing one of their own in office no matter the cost. Something about cutting off noses, whatevs.
Some people back political parties like they’re local sports teams.
“Whatever the Dallas Cowboys do is bad and everything the Philadelphia Eagles do is good.”
Good stuff. Some things I am too chickenshit to say to people, but I agree with every word.
Justin Trudeau for President.
I would like to applaud the brilliant piece of performance art that is “Michael San Juan” – I mean, he has to be, right?
All I know is that this election suggests that maybe term limits aren’t all they are cracked up to be…
Scary thought: that dude is an adult.
I disagree
I have only one word to say on this….BRAVO. It was fair and balanced.
Word.
“My god…Trump raped a baby on live TV!! How can you vote for him?”
“Easy…..he ain’t Hillary.”
Stop using primary-sourced facts and sharp, rigorously-considered inductive logic, Eric. It’s not fair.
I’ll offer here the Rest of the World opinion on Trump, not that it matters: “Ha ha – stop being silly! Oh, you mean it? Shit.”
Clinton vs Trump. The 21st Century equivalent of choosing to eat cow shit or dog shit. One is significantly more horrible than the other- but at the end of the day, you’re still eating shit.
I am
Jeffrey Boss 2016
I thought you wrote Jeffrey Ross, but same thing, right?
I, I just can’t..How much longer until November? Is it wrong to send in my absentee ballot and ask to be placed in a medically induced coma for a while?
Wow that’s a LOT of commenting.
You want fries with that?
https://youtu.be/xhtZ58u1wmw
The best.
Well, if you’re going to have nuts – you really should upsell the fries, too.
Salesmanship 101, that.
I am pretty sure Zig Ziglar said that.
Another awesome piece, Eric. Pretty much sums up my feelings, too. Mind if I share?
Regardless of how I feel about both candidates, I am saddened that this was the best this country had to offer us, the American people deserve more and better than both of these individuals. Sorry to pee in anyone’s Cheerios but both of them are a disgrace.
They only got there because people voted for them in the primaries despite better options on both sides. People are getting the government they deserve.
I believe it’s the political power circle of greed all around. The average person who wants to get involved gets crushed not being wealthy and or having the right special interest money backing them. Doesn’t seem very democratic to me. Lol
I agree wholeheartedly, Brad. I’ve been saying since last year that this was shaping up to be the worst election of my adult life. Sure enough, the primaries (unfortunately) bore than out.
James Hanson, not all of us are allowed to vote in primaries.
I know but Dems and Republicans vote and this is who they chose. Its people’s own fault that they’ve been brain washed into only voting for two parties.
This is outstanding. Very fair, very honest, and I commend you for posting this.
I’m actually thinking of making a list of every politician and talking head I see supporting this nimrod for future disregard
Well done.
Can I share this, Eric?
This better go viral!
Thanks, Eric.
That was a very well written profile of Trump and assertion that his supporters are deflecting, blind, ignorant, uninformed, racist, hate-mongering people.
Wrong
Larry, if you support Trump, you hate porn.
Bad.
John Khus LOL…but wrong again.
Oh good, you don’t support Trump.
Support rump. It’s good porn.
Though we disagree here, I can attest that Larry does not hate porn.
That’s a good thing.
What us so perfectly brilliant about this, is that you have actually followed the basic structure of a legal argument and constructed an unassailable case.
This is beyond any room for reasonable doubt in your conclusion.
Your conclusion is true beyond an shadow of a doubt. Any attempt to posit a “reasonable” counter argument is sophistry at best.
Good show.
Honored to hear that from you, Keith. Genuinely so. Thanks.
Eric, you absolutely nailed it!
What if I don’t think Trump is a good presidential candidate, but think he’d be a wonderful pro wrestling manager?
The one thing that’s amazing to me about all of this, is that if there’s one person Republicans hate most, its Hillary Clinton (or Obama). And I mean hate with a passion.
And yet over the past few months, we are seeing Republicans in office endorse Hillary Clinton over the Republican nominee. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen. That should give you pause.
And there’s a reason why. He’s not a Republican. He’s not a Democrat. He only has one actual loyalty — to Donald Trump.
“I think Hillary’s great and the economy does better under Democrats.” Trump said that. He’s a con man, plain and simple.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kSE-XoVKaXg
I love this… There is no share button!!!!
Yeeeeahh, and there’s my jump into politics for the year … Anyway, thanks to everyone who took the time to read, comment, and share. Your comments and thoughts are appreciated. Agree or disagree, I hope you at least took something from the piece.
Nobody hates the two party machine more than me and I should love the fact that a populist has risen up to take the nomination away from the party elites. Unfortunately, the one who did it is an oafish, sociopathic, bigoted nimrod swept into the nomination by like minded zealots demonstrating the prescience of the Founders and their checks against the tyranny of the majority. Thankfully they are only a tyrannical majority of morons rather than of the general population.
This truly is the one moment when a third party could win but our collective delusion about only two parties being viable is too strong.
“We have met the enemy, and he is us.” — Pogo
You and me both. Any other year, any other candidate, and I’d probably be overjoyed that someone was mucking up the machine. This guy, though … well, I’d say don’t get me started, but at this point I’d not sure what else I can say. LOL
Bravo, sir
Wow! I definitely could not of said it better myself! You really started something didn’t you. THE TRUTH MUST BE TOLD!
I have to confess…..I’ve thought about posting it on Trump’s page.
Finally read this — basically a perfect summary of his surreal and terrifying campaign. I am still in disbelief he won the primary.
We’re seeing some pretty crazy things in the numbers. It’s a lesson (or a refresher course) in about how many of each demographic group there is out there. Georgia is now in play (unheard of). Why? Southern college educated whites (like me) tend to dislike Trump in droves. White people under 20 do not tend to like him at all. So he’s left with no room to grow in a state like Georgia. Interesting summary in this NY Times article from Tuesday. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/11/upshot/donald-trumps-red-state-problem.html
Jay citing the NYT? That’s unpossible!
I cite it all the time.
No
The NY Times says you’re wrong.
I just got OWNED
Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!
Nok Su Kow! Nok Su Kow!
Well said. Of course you’re preaching to the choir, but you know that. It’s good to see someone put all that insanity in one place though. Sadly you’ll probably have to do a sequel because he’s not done offending people yet!
If I may offer a somewhat hypothetical situation…the newspaper business has been in severe decline for several years. News papers have been down-sized or closed and hundreds, if not thousands, of journalists have lost their jobs. Maybe even you lost a job because of this but you’ve been lucky enough to salvage your career elsewhere. It’s been a financial hit, but you’re much luckier than most in the industry. Some of the folks you know still haven’t found a replacement job and have had to move. Others have turned to drugs and welfare to take away the stresses of their new lives. The impact of the decline in your industry has been nothing short of devastating to your community. So, now you have two incredibly distasteful candidates. One who, out of all the businesses in the country, chooses yours to say, “we’re gonna put a lot of journalists and newspapers out of business.” No equivocation, no wiggle-room. And based on the last 8 years, you damn sure believe her. Now, the next guy, despite everything you wrote about him being true, says “I’m gonna put all those newspapers and journalists back to work.” You don’t know how much you can believe this guy…maybe it’s 50/50 but it’s probably worse. But any chance is better than no chance at all. With a kid in college and all the other stuff life likes to throw at you, who do you vote for?
Wayne Osborne if I were you, and coal mining was my sole vote decider (which I completely understand), I’d be damn sure that coal mining in some way benefitted Donald Trump, by a margin at least slightly greater than turning on coal mining does, In the immediate future.
Because that’s what he will do. He will do exactly what benefits him the most. It makes no difference what he says.
Hypothetically speaking, even if Donald Trump were promising full-time, tenure-track positions for all college professors, I still wouldn’t vote for him on the basis of his being a racist, xenophobic, fear-mongering piece of shit.
That’s all well and good, Matt but folks around here can’t pay their power bills or feed their kids with righteous indignation.
Wayne Osborne Do you believe that Trump, the policies he’s proposing, or his rhetoric are a danger to PoC (Muslims, Hispanics, or Blacks)?
I really don’t know, Matt. Part of me thinks that if he gets elected, he’ll hand off the actual job to staff and advisors and spend his time strutting around and taking all the credit and none of the blame wherever applicable. And all the bluster and such will fade away into just another administration. But he keeps doing and saying such stupid stuff that flies in the face of all logic and I wonder what world he thinks he’s living in where he can do and say these things and still get elected. And, yeah, if he keeps it up, some nutjob is going to be inspired to hurt someone (but that kind of crazy goes both ways – we’ve seen it just this year in Dallas and Louisiana). You guys know me, I’m certainly not a racist – hell, you yourself thought I was black for years. But I look around at my family, friends, and community and I see it going to hell very fast and I can’t help but cast around for any small glimmer of hope that things might get better. I don’t want to vote for Trump at all, never have. My pick was a Kasich/Rubio ticket. But there’s no way I can vote for Clinton. I need to check Johnson’s position on coal. I’d gladly vote for him if he will let us go back to work.
Wayne Osborne I appreciate the response. And I’m not trying to be dismissive of your concerns. I live in Michigan and go to school and work in Detroit, so I see every day what can happen when an industry disappears or is dying. For me, as someone who has spent a lot longer than I should have working seriously crappy jobs, my perspective is still that there are always jobs of some kind or safety nets or ways to transition when it comes to earning a living. Trump’s policies and rhetoric would likely have such a long and damaging reach that it’s really the sole issue I’m voting on this time around (usually education is my top voting issue, but I haven’t even looked at Clinton’s proposals beyond “free college” which is unlikely to happen anytime soon).
Matt you make a fair point and a good one. We’re really between a rock and a hard place this year.
Honestly? Yeah, I’d go with the one who is promising to help my community, even if he’s a dreadful person. But the issue is that Clinton’s complete remarks say the she’s going to bring new jobs and opportunities to coal country while Trump just says that he will roll time back. Leaving side the actual competency of the candidates, which one is more feasible? A lot of Trump’s, let’s be charitable and call it “platform” is predicated on bringing back jobs that just can’t be brought back.
Your expertise on Hitchock & his visions are less scary than the possible future reality of which you so eloquently narrate. Thanks.
Well said! I don’t even know how to respond to people who support him.. There are no words.
I forgot that Trump was a small-dick before reading that article. Now I remember.
I’ve been posting the link to Eric’s article wherever I can.
I prefer not to couch my arguments and feelings in terms of what I think of his supporters. I’ve got years of practice of putting aside that line of thinking about people who support candidates I despise or issues I feel strongly about. Our sense of community as Americans is best served when we direct our thoughts and arguments towards government and politicians — criticize it, dissent from it, criticize them, and even mock them. Be an informed skeptic about everything a candidate (or elected official) represents and says. But when we morph into “let’s talk about how horrible the people are that espouse ________,” we move into a corrupted, toxic form of discourse that is of a type that is tearing this country apart. I’m not picking on you, Eric — this is very common, the default level of discourse in our day, especially online. And I certainly feel the kinds of things I’m talking about here. But I’ve made a decision to try and talk about the candidate, the government, the issue, the policy. And not opine publicly on the motivations, sanity, or evil of the person I’m actually talking to, or the guy sitting on either side of me.
I’m in a Red State, so the issue is a little more poignant, I think. It tends to break more visibly along lines of class, education, and age. So it makes me want to figure out what needs, what fears, what aspirations are being met by the Trump Phenomenon, and how we can turn that towards something good.
By the way, I was replying to Eric and my post hit right at the same time as Matt’s. My preceding post doesn’t really flow after the talk about calling out bigotry, racism, lynching, etc.
Don’t feel as if you’re picking on me at all, Jay, and even if you were, your observations are well taken and thoughtfully made. Can’t quibble with any of what you’re saying, even if it is an indirect (and fair) criticism of the tone of this piece. Which is, to be honest, kind of a surprise coming from someone so evil and insane.
I would argue that the candidate only reaches a certain position with the support of a number of like-minded people, and when it comes to someone like Trump (whose views aren’t political, but bigoted) then it’s fair and necessary to call out those who share those views. At some point this rhetorical argument started to be made that calling out racism or bigotry or homophobia was wrong or counter-productive or (and I find this the most insidious) intolerant. As if bigotry is something that should be tolerated. Or that people who hold and/or espouse views that are bigoted are otherwise good people. Obviously they aren’t as bad as the person holding rope at a lynching. But that doesn’t make their efforts to deny rights to those their bigoted against somehow benign, either.
Nicely said Eric. Impressive work.
When I see Trump lawn signs I honestly never know if the homeowner is doing it to be funny because I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that people would vote for him!
Not sure of the original source but:
Debating Trump Supporters is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon — it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.
This may become my go-to resource about Trump. It’s all in one place.
I’m a Five Guys fries guy.
Say that five times fast.
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If you waited just two more months, think of all the new material you’d have for this one lol
If you waited just two more months, think of all the new material you’d have for this one lol
You ain’t kidding! Though on the other hand, is anything that came after really all that surprising? The tape leak speaks for itself, I hope, but it also doesn’t shock me. The most shocking part is not his attitude, it’s that people defend it. And that was really the point of this original piece, IMO. The amazement that people still defend him.
I lived in Toronto when Rob Ford was mayor. That wasn’t that long ago, either. Times are strange.
Oh shit! I did not realize that. So yeah, you get it. Oh god, do you get it …
Two pussies scared of being grabbed and forced to be great again. Sad!
I think of this essay often when I see people I genuinely like say ridiculous pro-Trump things.
Bro too many big words. Trump 2016!
Excellent.
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