Americans Are Absolutely Terrified of Trump

[DKW 86 7,893]

34 minutes ago, metafour said:

People like aubiefifty are the end-result of what the system intends to create of the population: grown-ass adults spending their entire day following completely irrelevant "news stories" and fearing made-up issues.  The day-to-day impact for 99% of the population of the presidency switching from Obama to Trump is literally non-existent; yet you see these NPC's cowering in a corner as if their world is being turned upside down.  Live your freaking lives you losers and stop wasting precious seconds over something that not only has no impact on you, but for which you can't even control.  You go to work and you pay taxes; nothing has or will change for you.

While i wouldnt be that strident, I do think that Adults need to turn on the hyperbole filters. 
If you had listened to all the BE over the last 20 years or so you would have slit your wrists by now. 
I got taught this myself as many around here can attest. I too listened to some well meaning, seemingly knowledgeable folks that turned out were just hyperventilating. So I speak as one that has lived thru this before and took a huge hit in the process. 

Even well intentioned people spew hyperbole. We just need to quit listening to the talk and look at the evidence. If I confronted some of these FEARFUL people, I bet there really hasnt been even one thing that they have seen with their own eyes or have been delivered to their door etc that made them Fearful. Nothing but listening/watching/reading the Fear Merchants do what they do every two years.

"Most Important Election in Our Life Time..."
"End of our Constitutional Rights to Guns and Abortions."
"Going to tax us to death..."
"Going to Start a Nuclear War..." 
"We are all gonna die..."
"Gonna lock all of the ________up in chains..."
"Etc Etc Etc.

And they all talk this way because they really dont have any real position on the issues. 

[johnnyAU 3,745]

When the alarmism, fear tactics, indoctrination attempts of the youth and completely biased op-eds/social media posts with no substance but over-the-top exaggeration abound (and yes fifty, from both sides) the truth is usually found somewhere in the middle.  Unfortunately at the moment, that middle ground is a light year away from the edges of hysteria on the left and right.  What the heck has happened to our education system? It's not just America either. 

[homersapien 12,217]

On 7/24/2019 at 8:48 PM, johnnyAU said:

When the alarmism, fear tactics, indoctrination attempts of the youth and completely biased op-eds/social media posts with no substance but over-the-top exaggeration abound (and yes fifty, from both sides) the truth is usually found somewhere in the middle.  Unfortunately at the moment, that middle ground is a light year away from the edges of hysteria on the left and right.  What the heck has happened to our education system? It's not just America either. 

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/peter-wehner/the-death-of-politics/

"The Death of Politics - How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump"

A conservative takes aim at the Donald Trump presidency and how to move beyond it.

A veteran Republican senior adviser for George W. Bush, Wehner (co-author: City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era, 2010, etc.) published an op-ed column in the New York Times in which he declared that he would not vote for Trump “under any circumstances. I was perhaps the first prominent Republican to have taken this position, and I did so despite having voted Republican in every presidential election since I first became eligible to vote in 1980.” Here, the author explains why he considered Trump anathema as a candidate and why his presidency, if anything, has been worse than the author feared.

He situates his argument within the broader context of American democracy, explaining how and why the citizenry can set right what has gone wrong. It’s an extended civics lesson of sorts, one grounded in American history, the balance of powers, and presidencies good and bad.

Wehner also reaches back to Aristotle for foundational philosophies of the functions of government and the body politic. “Democracy requires that we honor the culture of words,” he writes, and later continues, “when words are weaponized and used merely to paint all political opponents as inherently evil, stupid, and weak, then democracy’s foundations are put in peril.”

The author urges civility, moderation, and compromise, qualities that would seem to be at odds with the political tenor of the times, and he believes a return to a pre-polarization brand of politics would correct the course” He writes, “the task before us…is how we can rediscover, refine and recalibrate—and in some cases, reenvision and rethink—how we understand politics; to disentangle what politics has become from what it can be, to clear away some of the misconceptions, and to sketch a roadmap for recovery.” In response to the spirit of populist revolution, he offers a number of other “r” words to calm the waters and restore some rationality to the process.

A modest contribution to the groaning bookshelves about our divisive times.

[japantiger 4,116]

On 7/24/2019 at 3:40 PM, DKW 86 said:

While i wouldnt be that strident, I do think that Adults need to turn on the hyperbole filters. 
If you had listened to all the BE over the last 20 years or so you would have slit your wrists by now. 
I got taught this myself as many around here can attest. I too listened to some well meaning, seemingly knowledgeable folks that turned out were just hyperventilating. So I speak as one that has lived thru this before and took a huge hit in the process. 

Even well intentioned people spew hyperbole. We just need to quit listening to the talk and look at the evidence. If I confronted some of these FEARFUL people, I bet there really hasnt been even one thing that they have seen with their own eyes or have been delivered to their door etc that made them Fearful. Nothing but listening/watching/reading the Fear Merchants do what they do every two years.

"Most Important Election in Our Life Time..."
"End of our Constitutional Rights to Guns and Abortions."
"Going to tax us to death..."
"Going to Start a Nuclear War..." 
"We are all gonna die..."
"Gonna lock all of the ________up in chains..."
"Etc Etc Etc.

And they all talk this way because they really dont have any real position on the issues. 

 

Sorry, '86; but we're already dead ... living on an overcrowded planet wracked by mass starvation caused by overcrowding and of course, the new ice age brought on by global cooling; oh wait, that was the 70's...ok, ok, how about this; we're already dead living in an endless nuclear winter caused by the facist Ronald Reagan who killed all the old people when he cancelled Social Security...ok, ok, that was the 80's....how about this...we're listless desiccated souls awaiting our extinction from global warming in an ice-cap free world where me mourn the demise of the polar bears ... oh wait, that was the 90's...ok, ok, we're all dead anyway living in a Water World now as our continents are swamped from rising sea levels and endless F6 Hurricanes that make Katrina look like a fart in a worldwind; wow, this is hard...that was the new century...OMG, OMG, it's finally here....NET NEUTRALITY!!!!!  We're doomed...doomed I tell you...

There's only one constant...send me your Trillions$$, give me control of every aspect of your life, and I'll save  you from next catastrophe; which of course was never going to happen anyway...  

[DKW 86 7,893]

12 minutes ago, japantiger said:

Sorry, '86; but we're already dead ... living on an overcrowded planet wracked by mass starvation caused by overcrowding and of course, the new ice age brought on by global cooling; oh wait, that was the 70's...ok, ok, how about this; we're already dead living in an endless nuclear winter caused by the facist Ronald Reagan who killed all the old people when he cancelled Social Security...ok, ok, that was the 80's....how about this...we're listless desiccated souls awaiting our extinction from global warming in an ice-cap free world where me mourn the demise of the polar bears ... oh wait, that was the 90's...ok, ok, we're all dead anyway living in a Water World now as our continents are swamped from rising sea levels and endless F6 Hurricanes that make Katrina look like a fart in a worldwind; wow, this is hard...that was the new century...OMG, OMG, it's finally here....NET NEUTRALITY!!!!!  We're doomed...doomed I tell you...

There's only one constant...send me your Trillions$$, give me control of every aspect of your life, and I'll save  you from next catastrophe; which of course was never going to happen anyway...  

While not supporting every single word of that...BRAVO!