rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

Underreported fact: Iowa caucus turnout was the lowest it's been in 24 years.

What I think the nation needs is more interviews with white guys in diners. Specifically about their culture war issues and sense of grievance and their feelings about how neglected they are.

We clearly haven't heard enough about them and their grievances and their resentments and their prejudices. Maybe a few more interviews in diners would finally let us know how they feel about things. Those poor unfortunate forgotten people, left behind by contemporary culture.

You know what might help? Interviewing some of them in a diner. Yes, clearly, then we will know more about how they feel. Because they've been so neglected and forgotten and all. Their concerns have not been publicized at all.

(Deliberately written in the most redundant and repetitious style because I am auditioning for the New York Times's "Cletus Safari" beat.)

I heard this on NPR yesterday, and couldn't quite wrap my head around it.

... They're writing about - gosh - I used to live in a community that looked one way and now it doesn't. They write about how the lunchroom is smelly, because new immigration patterns have meant that people are bringing new things in their lunchbox. I mean, literally - and so you see things and it can almost be in some ways a bellwether. So in the lead up to the election in 2016, about four or five years ahead of that, we started to see the word invisible more and more in the inbox. And we always saw the word invisible, but it was usually attached to women of color saying they felt invisible, a lot of Asian people saying that they felt invisible.

Suddenly we were seeing more white people, and particularly white men, saying that they felt invisible in their own country, that they were living in a country that they didn't understand, that they were living in a country that felt like it looked past them. And that was interesting because that was sort of the beginning for me of understanding something that was happening out in the world that I could see through numbers and statistics and demographic change. But it's very different when you're actually hearing someone talk about the job that they felt that they didn't get...

https://www.npr.org/2024/01/15/1224762742/michele-norris-shows-how-brevity-conveys-powerful-truths-about-americans-identit

it's sad they were white people

Pity the plight of those who have to adjust to a world that caters to them 1% less than the 100% that it used to.

What I think the nation needs is more interviews with white guys in diners. Specifically about their culture war issues and sense of grievance and their feelings about how neglected they are.

We clearly haven't heard enough about them and their grievances and their resentments and their prejudices. Maybe a few more interviews in diners would finally let us know how they feel about things. Those poor unfortunate forgotten people, left behind by contemporary culture.

You know what might help? Interviewing some of them in a diner. Yes, clearly, then we will know more about how they feel. Because they've been so neglected and forgotten and all. Their concerns have not been publicized at all.

(Deliberately written in the most redundant and repetitious style because I am auditioning for the New York Times's "Cletus Safari" beat.)

Your nation doesn't need it and our nation doesn't need to see it but the media over here are obsessed with US politics and fuck what the rest of us think.

Suddenly we were seeing more white people, and particularly white men, saying that they felt invisible in their own country, that they were living in a country that they didn't understand, that they were living in a country that felt like it looked past them.

I have read this a hundred times, and I guess people feel this way, but -- how? I'm a white man too. I turn on the TV and I see shows about white men heroically doing stuff. I read the newspaper and it's about the white men who are in charge of the country. And I walk down the street and I see -- lots of white guys like me, doing our thing. Walking with their kids. Shopping. Visible! Not invisible!

Yeah obviously what's going on isn't them actually feeling invisible, it's adjusting to a world where other people are visible. And this is definitely for sure a real reaction, it's a visceral way people experience unfamiliarity. (Paging John Rocker ...)

tipsy otm, but it kills me when I hear this type of shit from my MAGA relatives, all of whom, I must add, live in places where they have to go significantly out of their way to see someone who doesn't look like them.

I wonder how different all of this would be if, magically, social media ceased to exist.

(Obviously the resentment and rage would still be there but I think these platforms amplify it.)

social media wasn't worth all the damage it did to the world.

Right-wing media overall is much more the factor than social media imo. It creates this whole made-up world where all these terrible people are doing things all the time to threaten you, because they hate you and they're coming to take your (house/spouse/kids/language/culture/religion/etc).

I had a local county commissioner complaining to me a few years ago saying, "I'm a white guy, nobody cares what I think at all, it's just, 'Ew, white guy!'" And I was like, dude, you are literally on County Commission. You're objectively one of the more powerful people in the whole county. But he felt marginalized — a white Republican male elected official in Tennessee.

right wing media has been doing that shit for decades, only now it seeps into everyone's feeds and infects those who would never watch Fox or visit Breitbart in a million years, and they never know they're being slowly poisoned via Facebook and Twitter, and being turned against those of various marginalized groups who are just trying to scrape out a life. RW media manufactures the ammunition, social media is the assault weapon.

maybe we need to get our hands dirty and start all these viral memes of made-up urban legends

"did you hear that there's a fetus growing on Trump's shoulder, that he actually takes pills to try to kill it"

persecuted majority complex has been around a while... Christians have always had a severe case of it

Social media's function isn't in increasing the number of people who, at least lately, believe migrants are "poisoning the blood" of the country so much as it's accelerating the time it takes for them to feel at-ease saying so to anyone and everyone

at least lately latently

In other words, what omar said

I'm not disputing any of the above, but whenever they're in these diners interviewing people, most of them seem to be post-retirement age or close to it. Might also be a factor in why they feel things used to be better

The NYT tbf exerts itself for the sake of interviewing young, fresh racists at diners.

I wonder how different all of this would be if, magically, social media ceased to exist.

― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, January 16, 2024 12:38 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Imagine a world where social media, reality TV, and Fox News had never happened (or at least not mutated into the behemoths they became). It's not like the late '90s/early '00s were a utopia but, good christ, where might we be today under other, better circumstances.

idk y'all I lived through the Gingrich-Clinton era. Sure, it was easier to tune out Peter Jennings and Ted Koppell, but the toxicity was everywhere for the first time.

These are the same people mad they cannot find anyone to work on their deck and their hamburger order came out wrong because no one wants to work anymore and when they do it is costing more than it did back in 1992.

Is there anyone with a less justified persecution complex than a white Christian male living in the United States?

this whole made-up world where all these terrible people are doing things all the time to threaten you, because they hate you

Devil's advocate, but is it worth delving into that last clause a bit?

Is there anyone with a less justified persecution complex than a white Christian male living in the United States?

https://i.imgur.com/Ce95mhy.png

Haha, yeah, he came to mind as I typed that question. The thing is, people really are out to get him--with good reason.

And, yes, people really do hate him

Dan Pfeiffer:

For this Republican electorate, who consume a daily buffet of Fox News and other Right Wing media, Trump is an incumbent president running for reelection. According to the entrance polls, 66% of caucus-goers do not believe that Biden won the 2020 election legitimately.

Trump’s incumbent status gives him a massive advantage in name identification and depth of knowledge about his (lack of?) character and (abhorrent?) views. Trump should have won tonight. There is no modern example of an incumbent president losing a nomination fight. When you shift your frame of reference to analyzing this race through the prism of an incumbent president fending off a primary challenge, Trump’s victory last night doesn’t seem so impressive.

ok, sure, but I'm so tired of reading how the rest of us need to shift our frame of reference to account for the batshit lunatic mnority

When you shift your frame of reference to analyzing this race through the prism of an incumbent president fending off a primary challenge

right wing media has been doing that shit for decades, only now it seeps into everyone's feeds and infects those who would never watch Fox or visit Breitbart in a million years

Sinclair is the most prevalent owner of ABC, NBC and CBS affiliates, and bought the Baltimore Sun yesterday.

If he's the incumbent president how can he be running for a third t- oh fuck it why bother

A good little NY Times blog post from Jamelle Bouie. Reproduced in full so you can print it out and save it to re-read as needed.

Trump Isn’t Close to Having a Majority

We frequently hear that Donald Trump represents a large and significant number of Americans, each attracted to him for several different reasons, none of which are that mysterious.

There are supporters attracted to his doctrinaire commitment to social conservatism, even if he himself is a libertine. There are supporters attracted to his belligerent hostility toward a broad variety of perceived cultural enemies. There are supporters attracted to his open cruelty toward and contempt for various racial and religious “others.” And there are supporters who simply think he’ll get them a good “deal” in foreign and domestic affairs — whatever that actually means.

Again, it’s not that complicated.

What is less frequently heard on the lips of political commentators is the fact that, while large and significant, Trump’s following is not a majority. Not even close. In fact, by any measure, Trump has been a unique electoral loser for the Republican Party.

His ceiling in national elections — having been twice on the presidential ballot — seems to be somewhere between 46 percent and 47 percent of the voting public. In 2016, that was enough, thanks to the Electoral College, to put him in the White House. In 2020, it wasn’t.

Just as significant is the fate of the most explicitly Trump-aligned candidates — the so-called MAGA Republicans whom President Biden condemned in his 2022 address on the state of American democracy. They are also electoral losers. The Republican Party, thanks to Trump’s influence, has lost or severely underperformed in three consecutive national elections, as well as a large number of special and off-year elections.

None of this means that he and his closest allies are somehow doomed in November. But it does seem as if there is a national political majority that is, if nothing else, consistently hostile to Trump or Trump-like figures, and will vote to keep them out of office.

There has been an endless parade of analysis of the Trump or MAGA voter. Perhaps it’s time to focus on the views of this actual silent majority, whose members don’t attend rallies or make a show of their political commitments but whose votes have powered the Democratic Party to an unusual six-year run of electoral victories.

The joke I made after the 2020 election was that I assumed Fox and National Review would send reporters to try to understand the thoughts and concerns of old Black men in barbershops or suburban moms at the gym, so their audiences could understand these vital demographics. But maybe even if Fox isn't going to do that the MSM could.

lol tipsy

It seems like the Daily Show or somebody like that would’ve done that at least once though

“We staked out shared work spaces in San Francisco, bodegas in Brooklyn, some coffee shops in Massachusetts, and a barbershop in Cleveland to understand the mythical Democrats in their native habitats”

“What are they thinking? What do they want? And why do they hate each other so much”

Black women are the key Dem constituency.

"We stopped by this speakeasy styled craft brewery in Portland to ask this group of Settlers of Catan players about why they voted for Biden and their fears about the country's future."

just over 110,000 voters participated in the 2024 caucuses... just under 15% of the state's 752,000 registered Republicans.

I don't know what to make of this, but I imagine the cultists were more moved to brave the weather?

Hell, Trump told them to.

xp there were 186,932 voters in 2016, per wikipedia.

the lunchroom is smelly, because new immigration patterns have meant that people are bringing new things in their lunchbox

Please, Donald Trump, save us from delicious curry and amazing tacos

And, to Raymond: Colbert did exactly that bit. He asked a labor unionist to kiss a gay guy. He asked an Indian woman which kind, like "dot or feather"? It was cringe AF but that was, at the time, his schtick.

All we had was PB&J, and we liked it that way.

"I don't need any of that strange smelling stuff in my break room," said Joe as he threw a couple of slices of American cheese on his cold Filt-O-Fish sandwich before tossing it in the microwave.

Reminds me of the time a coworker microwaved scallops.

I've never tried that. Did they explode?

My sense of smell did.