Trump: Torture definitely works

[TheFeniX]

I think you're still getting mixed up over which 'they' you're talking about.

I think we're two people mostly in agreement arguing past each other. I agree with everything you're saying except one part.

2) That in the process, they have spent large amounts of time and effort, with the cooperation of right-wing media outlets, on creating an audience that is responsive to these views.

I don't know what you mean by creation, because in this instance you could mean a couple of things. But I'll roll with what I was originally going to say:

They didn't create an audience. They merely moved a heavily marginalized one back to the front. The "good ol' days" guys who spout excessive racism and sexism. The kind of guys who bailed on GW by saying his failings were because he wasn't conservative enough. They "joked" about keep the white house white. No way Obama was getting elected because they believed everyone was as terrified of a black guy as they all were. And McCain lost to him because he wasn't conservative enough. That's why they paired him with Nailin' Palin.

The RNC went begging to those guy for support because faith in the RNC was at an all-time low after GW and even worse after Obama spanked. the. shit. out of them. It's getting about as bad now as it was then. Though Trump gave them an energy boost.

As you said in #1: they've always been here. But their overt bullshit wasn't all that tolerated. News wouldn't touch them or would run them through the ringer. Moderates would write them off immediately. The Republicans had to maintain a public face of "we're totally not those people... but we'll take their votes." They found their home in Social Media hugboxes where they could spew whatever with little notice and be easily ignored. Because, what were they going to do, hijack a major political party and put someone like Trump in head office?

Yes actually, and the warning signs were there (did everyone just forget the Tea Party and how much headway they made?). In the face of gerry-mandering, districts you could label as "hugboxes," and voter laziness: Charles Manson could get elected in a two party system.

I also could just be way off-base and arguing semantics with you. I mean, if you said "Sim City created a new market for video games" because women, for which video games were the domain of men, played it a lot: I'd say you were wrong. They didn't turn women into gamers, they just found many women would like to play video games if it was enjoyable to them. That's all the Republicans did: change the message.... admittedly to one of with a lot of hate. And the sane Republicans are along for the ride, as they also aren't going to switch to (D).

If that's what you meant: then we actually are in complete agreement and I'm just arguing because I like the sound my mechanical keyboard makes.

Yeah, enthusiasm last election was way down. I think people were just sick of Trumps dumpster fire campaigning and then when Comey pulled his bullshit stunt with the emails I think the "Clinton is a crook" (despite 20+ years of investigations that led to nothing of any import) meme was the last straw for a lot of people who just tuned the rest of the campaign out and didn't vote.

Also, media reporting Trump's chance of winning "snowballs chance in Hell" for months and so loudly, even I got suckered in.

Fucking Democrats made me eat crow in front of my Trump lovin' brother. Liberals man. God damn it.

[TheFeniX]

Ghetto Edit: I want to retract and apologize the "Nailin' Palin" comment. That's crass and made me a huge hypocrite since I give my brother shit for making female-based cracks at HRC.

I'd like to think I'm better than that, but also will say I have zero respect for Palin as a person. McCain at least has redeemable qualities.

[Simon_Jester]

Fenix, I think we're close enough. I do think the Republican Party put a lot of time and effort into encouraging the wingnut portion of their support base, and that they've been... for lack of a better term, cultivated by a combination of political factors.

It's not that tens of millions of Americans were somehow brainwashed into becoming the sort of person who'd expect Trump to be a good president. Not saying that.

It's that tens of millions of Americans who were predisposed to think that way were encouraged to keep thinking that way for years. And to bring their friends. Given grounds to think of themselves as a 'silent majority' rather than the bottom of the ideological barrel. They were recruited into astroturf political movements, stirred up by rhetoric from the right-wing media and right-wing politicians about what an apocalyptic threat Democrats were... In short, the RNC kept trying to throw them more and more red meat to improve the electability of conventional (R) politicians.

Which is where I come in saying that this audience, this support base, was 'created' by the Republican Party. It's been a common Republican strategy ever since Goldwater and Nixon's Southern Strategy, and they seem to double down on it every time the Democrats run an uninspired candidate unable to create mass turnout on the left. Every. Single. Time.

Sooner or later, the pattern was bound to run beyond the Republican political leadership's ability to control, and now they've created a fascist movement.

I don't think our actual positions on this are that far apart.

[TheFeniX]

Fenix, I think we're close enough.

I don't think it would be the Internet without two people in agreement continuing to argue. Also, I've got another rant in me: apologies in advance.

EDIT: nah, I've ranted enough. Especially since we really don't have any disagreements. No use in continuing agreeing with each other. The Internet is not for such things.

[Flagg]

Fenix, I think we're close enough.

I don't think it would be the Internet without two people in agreement continuing to argue. Also, I've got another rant in me: apologies in advance.

EDIT: nah, I've ranted enough. Especially since we really don't have any disagreements. No use in continuing agreeing with each other. The Internet is not for such things.

We shall conclude our agreement by arguing over the meaning of a word and the canon status of Star Wars material!

[Elfdart]

Of course torture works!

If you're a medieval priest, want to steal some old crone's land, but can't do it unless she confesses to fornicating with devils, summoning storms with black magic, or causing the neighbor's wife to miscarry with a magic charm, then torture is really the only option.

If you're a fratboy retard who wants a war but can't find a legitimate reason to start one, then torturing another retard until he confesses that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks and had atomic, chemical and biological weapons at the ready to strike again is probably your best option.

If you're a neo-Nazi game show host who can't maintain an erection or do anything with the temporary ones he can muster, on account of the relevant body parts being so tiny, then torturing and otherwise doing cruel things to people who can't fight back is the best you can hope for.

[Flagg]

Of course torture works!

If you're a medieval priest, want to steal some old crone's land, but can't do it unless she confesses to fornicating with devils, summoning storms with black magic, or causing the neighbor's wife to miscarry with a magic charm, then torture is really the only option.

If you're a fratboy retard who wants a war but can't find a legitimate reason to start one, then torturing another retard until he confesses that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks and had atomic, chemical and biological weapons at the ready to strike again is probably your best option.

If you're a neo-Nazi game show host who can't maintain an erection or do anything with the temporary ones he can muster, on account of the relevant body parts being so tiny, then torturing and otherwise doing cruel things to people who can't fight back is the best you can hope for.

Torture is seeing, hearing, or worst of all, being in the presence of the Floppy Skin Fuhrer. Luckily Ivanka is a cyborg with no emotions or I'd be horrified that she has to actually allow Mr. Melty (anyone remember the first half of the Tarantino/Rodriguez movie 'Grindhouse' where Tarantino's character was going to rape the fresh amputee with the gun for a leg where you saw his dick melting and falling off from behind and in shadow? I imagine it's like that ) to insert his Play-Doh consistant phallus into her.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm gonna be honest, I'd feel sorry for Ivanka even if she was a cyborg with no emotions.