Chaos USA

[Doc]

It doesn't seem to be their strength, does it? It's always a Great Leader of some sort or other. There was an experiment I read about - I found it both distasteful and enlightening - when I was learning about neuroscience. Someone had put two kittens in a couple of baskets connected by a bar hung from its centre. One kitten had holes in its basket and could move its legs. The other didn't have those holes and thus couldn't move its legs. The kitten that could move its legs and investigate stuff, grew up normally. The other was passive for the rest of its life.

I look at the right and that is what I see.

I don’t think I will stop thinking about this for awhile.

Learned helplessness is a real thing, and to play psychologist for a moment, that is an ingratiation strategy. The codependency of Trump and his cult is predicted by kittens. Take that, tough guy! 😂

[Doc]

Doo dee doo doo, doo dee doo, doot de doo doo, dew dew dhoo.

What is "...the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak."

This is right out of the handbook. I wish I could fake a laugh.

It’s almost unbelievable to think about the scale the right has chosen for the scapegoated enemy. It’s (appallingly) easy to imagine creating an enemy out of a relatively small group. The enemy is now everyone who isn’t them.

[In_Loos_Ptokai]

The amount of unrealistic victimization that makes up most of the American right’s grievance politics has become part of their political model period. It’s hard to believe that people with such privilege and power are so terribly victimized by the left that they demonize as weak and ineffectual. It also contributes to their claims
of blamelessness when anything that goes wrong in the nation.

And somehow these are the people who admire strength?

It doesn't seem to be their strength, does it? It's always a Great Leader of some sort or other. There was an experiment I read about - I found it both distasteful and enlightening - when I was learning about neuroscience. Someone had put two kittens in a couple of baskets connected by a bar hung from its centre. One kitten had holes in its basket and could move its legs. The other didn't have those holes and thus couldn't move its legs. The kitten that could move its legs and investigate stuff, grew up normally. The other was passive for the rest of its life.

I look at the right and that is what I see.

[Heresiologist]

... It’s hard to believe that people with such privilege and power are so terribly victimized by the left that they demonize as weak and ineffectual. It also contributes to their claims of blamelessness when anything that goes wrong in the nation.

And somehow these are the people who admire strength?

Doo dee doo doo, doo dee doo, doot de doo doo, dew dew dhoo.

What is "...the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak."

[Doc]

Fast forward to the accession to power of the Federal Secretary of Silly Tweets, the Tweeterbator himself, and his reaction on hearing the Danish Prime Minister saying he couldn't buy Greenland? Same crocodile tears, accusing the Danish Prime Minister of being cruel to him for merely telling him the truth - Greenland was not for sale.

(Though, mind you, it was there in the US reaction to the New Zealand Nuclear Weapon Free policy first declared in 1984. Self-pity is not so easily forgiven in a superpower ... )

The amount of unrealistic victimization that makes up most of the American right’s grievance politics has become part of their political model period. It’s hard to believe that people with such privilege and power are so terribly victimized by the left that they demonize as weak and ineffectual. It also contributes to their claims
of blamelessness when anything that goes wrong in the nation.

And somehow these are the people who admire strength?

[Doc]

The even more horrifying thought is that first, Pence would take over and, second, that such an event would almost guarantee a delay in the election (and if the election were to move forward as scheduled the results would immediately be challenged or even nullified due to the 11th hour change). Regardless, the result could likely be a major contest and may even result in a Constitutional crisis as the Parties spar to the detriment of the People.

President Pence— the thought is truly horrifying. However, I don’t think he has the kind of juice to move an election needle (results or dates) the way Trump could, even under the craziest of circumstances. Federal law is tough to challenge, and without the cult leader, Pence and the party are just run of the mill Republicans. Still dangerous and out of touch, but not threats to the Constitution and representational government (although McConnell would consider it).

[In_Loos_Ptokai]

FWLIW, I think we could see it coming as far back as the early nineties. Do you remember a figure skater named Tonya Harding? Whose "friends" allegedly attempted to cripple her rival Nancy Kerrigan at the ice rink she was practising at? And when Tonya Harding did turn up at the Winter Olympics in Calgary, she tried an old trick she was alleged to have done many times during her career as a figure skater in the States? Starting out with badly-laced skates, then bursting into tears and begging time out to get it fixed ... hoping for the sympathy vote. You could see the judges thinking, "This woman is supposed to be the top of the US figure skating ... should she by now have learnt not to go out onto a rink without having the very best in laces and having them adequately tied before she steps onto the ice?"

Fast forward to the accession to power of the Federal Secretary of Silly Tweets, the Tweeterbator himself, and his reaction on hearing the Danish Prime Minister saying he couldn't buy Greenland? Same crocodile tears, accusing the Danish Prime Minister of being cruel to him for merely telling him the truth - Greenland was not for sale.

(Though, mind you, it was there in the US reaction to the New Zealand Nuclear Weapon Free policy first declared in 1984. Self-pity is not so easily forgiven in a superpower ... )

[EverKing]

I just had the horrifying thought that if Trump keels over and turns his toes up within the next few days, the far right will claim that he's been assassinated ... when he's been Mr Covid-19 Superspreader and taken little to no responsibility for anyone. least of all himself.

I mean, it is poetic justice if he gets what he's been permitting for so many of his own countrymen. It's just that tragically, many of those countrymen won't recognize the truth even if it bit them.

The even more horrifying thought is that first, Pence would take over and, second, that such an event would almost guarantee a delay in the election (and if the election were to move forward as scheduled the results would immediately be challenged or even nullified due to the 11th hour change). Regardless, the result could likely be a major contest and may even result in a Constitutional crisis as the Parties spar to the detriment of the People.

[In_Loos_Ptokai]

Most effective leaders will tell you that they are responsible for failures and everyone else is responsible for successes. I’ve never seen such a powerful person who claims to be as victimized as Trump, especially in accounting for failures that are clearly his.

Equally troubling are the conspiracy theorists who would rather believe that there are complex, highly secretive plots to make Trump fail, rather than looking at the obvious.

I just had the horrifying thought that if Trump keels over and turns his toes up within the next few days, the far right will claim that he's been assassinated ... when he's been Mr Covid-19 Superspreader and taken little to no responsibility for anyone. least of all himself.

I mean, it is poetic justice if he gets what he's been permitting for so many of his own countrymen. It's just that tragically, many of those countrymen won't recognize the truth even if it bit them.

[Doc]

Trump is guy who, if things are going well, thinks that it's all down to him & if things are going badly, it's always somebody else's fault. Between the successful top level treatment for immediate covid19 symptoms, heavy duty medication & v.real fear of prison, if he loses the election, it could be that President Pumpkinhead, with his 'macho strong-man' act, is trying to pull a Bolsonaro.

Herman Cain was recovering from covid19, before he died.

Most effective leaders will tell you that they are responsible for failures and everyone else is responsible for successes. I’ve never seen such a powerful person who claims to be as victimized as Trump, especially in accounting for failures that are clearly his.

Equally troubling are the conspiracy theorists who would rather believe that there are complex, highly secretive plots to make Trump fail, rather than looking at the obvious.

[Doc]

Perhaps i was being just a wee bit optimistic when i wrote about a ' moment of cultural catharsis' coming to the U.S.A in the upcoming November Presidential Election.
Real and deadly strife might erupt anew and as violent as anything out of the year 1968, if not worse.

Once more, this from the Guardian : https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ause-civil-war

I wake up every morning recognizing my country less and less. The amount of people I know who are far more loyal to Trump and Trumpism than to the U.S. is stunning, made worse by their conviction that they are the true patriots. People with the quaint notion that patriotism involves pride in the whole nation are somehow the dividers and the enemy. Ugh.

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Trump is guy who, if things are going well, thinks that it's all down to him & if things are going badly, it's always somebody else's fault. Between the successful top level treatment for immediate covid19 symptoms, heavy duty medication & v.real fear of prison, if he loses the election, it could be that President Pumpkinhead, with his 'macho strong-man' act, is trying to pull a Bolsonaro.

Herman Cain was recovering from covid19, before he died.

[Kymba334]

Perhaps i was being just a wee bit optimistic when i wrote about a ' moment of cultural catharsis' coming to the U.S.A in the upcoming November Presidential Election.
Real and deadly strife might erupt anew and as violent as anything out of the year 1968, if not worse.

Once more, this from the Guardian : https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ause-civil-war

[EverKing]

Reagan did little but weaken our democracy by strengthening the corporations, namely the very Military Industrial Complex Ike warned against. Gorbachev had the courage and acumen to affect change.

I don't understand the affection people hold for Reagan. Perhaps you're right, Doc, that it is because of the Myth that he brought down the Iron Curtain.

[Doc]

Ballard was so good with everything, wasn’t he?

U.S. mythology has Reagan as Rambo threatening Gorbachev with a machine gun and bulging biceps, single handed lay destroying the Berlin Wall with his own giant sledge hammer.

The notion that Gorbachev did nothing but cower and capitulate is of course undermined by the role that Russia still holds in global politics.