Dude, perhaps the problem is that @Epic Beard Man and many others recognize a tragic reality with far greater depth and sensitivity than that demonstrated by you.
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Trump "Tearing U.S. Apart"?
- Thread starter metis
- Start date
Possibly. I just don't want America to get into a war we might not be able to win. Obviously, I have no first-hand knowledge of what's actually going on in the White House or the Trump Administration at this time. I don't personally know the man, so it could be that he's gone over the deep end. If he is truly mentally ill, then it could be argued that he is incapacitated and unable to carry out the functions of his office.
I always thought Trump was a bit of a blowhard who said a lot of crazy stuff, but I tended to attribute much of that to a reflection of our culture which has always had a certain coarse and nasty side to it - for better or worse. That's not something I blame directly on Trump, even though he may be one of the nastier practitioners of this sort of thing.
But I guess the question now is, what is the solution to all of this? Even if Trump is removed from office today, we'd still be faced with many of the same problems. Our electoral system may also still be vulnerable to someone even worse coming to power. That's what I worry about more than Trump himself, since I don't really believe he's that crazy. Or maybe he could be - I honestly don't know.
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True, although there was never really any outright "revolution" as some people might have wanted. Most people remained peaceful, and the ultra-violent elements never really gained any traction or support.
And to be fair, in some cases, they were going up against some pretty violent opposition - from small-town sheriffs with dogs to big city police departments, along with the National Guard in some cases. When they're on alert and loaded for bear, it can tend to raise tensions.
But as the song goes, Timothy Leary is dead.
Has that ground not been trod enuf last year?
Curious George
Veteran Member
Then we disagree. The divisions were already there. There might have been hope that the republicans could pull together during the election, but after the dust settled it is back to the same ol' same ol'. Democrats are no better, though liberals do seem united in there dislike of Trump. Truth is that Obama couldn't get them to work together during his first two years, and maybe that is because he sought a bi-partisian approach. Nonetheless, look at the confused nature of any liberal movements. BLM is a mess, occupy was a mess, the pipeline protest made a mess, and the only coherent protests have been those against Trump. It is almost like Trump is causing more unity by being "the bad guy."
The split between the others was already there. People accused Obama of being a Muslim. They were convinced he wasn't born in the U.S. even after he shared his birth certificate, the republicans stalled the budget for a exceptional length of time, one congressman wrote a letter opposing the presidents diplomacy efforts (arguably an unprecedented, unconstitutional step), stalling the Supreme Court appointment, villifying the left, villifying the right, and that is just a short list of political office division. We also need to contend with Immigration, global warming, systemic racism, overt racism, school funding, welfare, healthcare, school to prison pipeline, the middle east...the list just goes on ad nauseum. If you really think Trump is tearing us apart more than normal, I would have to ask why? Because he has said some bullyish things? Because he degrades some genders and ethnicities? The split was already there.
If anything is tearing us apart, it is ourselves. We are driving towards a plutocracy. We are endangering human survival and overpopulating. We are rejecting science in groups. We are sacrificing civil rights in this country and human rights abroad.
Trump isn't tearing us apart, Trump is president because we were torn apart.
Curious George
Veteran Member
You saying you find Hillary attractive? Glad you admit it. I knew there was a reason you were so obsessed with her.
When she was younger......I could've......uh.....<shudder>.....
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Nah, I think it's both.
No. Did you expect it to have been?
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
Perhaps "redneck" is a bit unfair. Maybe rural 'red state' folk as a kinder, broader designation? I know that people outside of this demographic also voted Trump, but the country bumpkin sort were the bulk of the vote.
Women and minorities have been insisting for decades: "Wake up ... look ... behind the window dressing pervasive systemic injustice persists. We need to do something!" And now we sit around saying: "WOW! Where did this crap come from?" First and foremost it came from an excess of self-serving indifference.
Trump is vulgar feedback that both exposes and exacerbated an ugly reality.
Trump is vulgar feedback that both exposes and exacerbated an ugly reality.
There's a difference between how close we came to obliteration where the decision of one Soviet sub commander saved the world and today's relative peace. We're certainly better off in that arena.
When it comes to political divisions, the US vs USSR cold war tended to minimize divisions. Now all the latent sewage has risen to the surface and people get divorced and even murdered because of politics. So we as a country are more divided internally.
The fire was already lit but he poured gasoline on the fire.
For many, the grief process takes a little longer than seven months. The grief of watching a loved one slowly dying generally doesn't end until after death. Personally, I reached acceptance (Kubler-Ross' fifth stage of grief) a decade ago. I considered America terminally ill then, and there has been no reason to see it otherwise since then - an attitude I learned working with hospice.
I agree with whomever it was that said that Trump is not the problem. He's just another symptom of a nation with multisystem failure: government, the media, the schools, corporate America, and most importantly, the intellectual and moral reserve of the American people, 35-40% of which still approve of Trump.
The medical analogy remains apt. If your kidney's are failing, acids accumulate in the blood as systemic pH falls. The respiratory can compensate for this by hyperventilating and blowing off CO2, the gaseous form of carbonic acid.
Or, if the lungs aren't oxygenating the hemoglobin adequately, the heart rate speeds up to compensate. If the blood contains 2/3 of the normal oxygen content, a 50% increase in heart rate compensates for this and returns the oxygen delivery to the tissues to its baseline rate.
But what happens when there is respiratory failure, heart failure, and renal failure in the same organism at the same time- multisystem failure? There is no reserve left. You get a runaway decompensation of all of these systems if artificial support (hemodialysis, artificial ventilation, etc.) doesn't buy time to heal, something that doesn't happen if these changes are chronic rather than of recent onset. There's no coming back from that.
America won't literally die, so the analogy breaks down there. It will just transform to a lower level of existence and remain therefor several generations or longer. You and I will never see the America of our youths again.
Is America becoming great again? Is it winning so much that it's tired of winning? Those words seem laughable now.
In the end, you are correct: "Get over it already." There is no cavalry coming to the rescue. Where would it come from? The media? The schools? Trump? Congress? Putin? The American voter who is so easily deceived that he votes against his own interest as @tytlyf has so nicely described? Any one of these could be corrected if the others were not also dysfunctional.
Recognizing this is the first step to acceptance.
I don't recognize America.
That surprises me. Why would you expect such a thing when it is so clear that the necessary conditions are not present, nor likely to arise any time soon?
Again, my point exactly.
As though urban bumpkins are any smarter than the country variety.
Running with both kinds, the big differences I find are that the rural ones more resourceful & independent.
(That dangling participle was on purpose.)
I don't understand what you're get'n at.
I am not getting at anything. I am telling you that I expected you to know better.
There is no way for people to simply accept this state of things.