The Emasculated American

[pismoe]

TRUMP is simply better based simpy on his words as i do not like any of hilarys proven actions or words in mrobamas administration Bulldog .

 

[BULLDOG]

TRUMP is simply better based simpy on his words as i do not like any of hilarys proven actions or words in mrobamas administration Bulldog .

Right. I'll just put you down as " Inside the fox bubble, reality doesn't really count in this case"

 

[gipper]

We Americans have had to endure presidents who don't want America to be great. The current one seems intent on weakening America economically, militarily, and culturally.

Trump is a terrible choice for POTUS...but Hillary is far worse. You can see the former, but can't see the later. Why?

Your claim that America has had presidents that didn't want America to be great is just ridiculous. We have had presidents that made very poor choices, but your claim takes everything out of the realm of reality into a twisted conspiracy theory ruled world of fear and unchecked paranoia. A rational person must see there has to be a limit to claims made for political purposes. Your claim is far beyond that limit.

Bull shit.

I suspect what you consider great and what I do, are two very different things.

I do not consider a nation great with open borders, 100 million working age people NOT working, huge welfare class, shrinking middle class, outrageous income inequality, a huge central government with unlimited power, politicians who are nothing but crooks, a government bureaucracy gone mad, military interventions throughout the world causing raising tensions, dark forces in government running wild...but that is just me I guess.

Do Obamabots like you think America is doing great?

Even though you greatly exaggerate the effects our problems have on us, there are and always will be the need to improve. Just because there is still need for improvement doesn't mean America isn't still the great nation it has always been. Perhaps you should try someplace else if you are so disappointed. Your hysterics are beyond that limit that rational people recognize and adhere to.

America would be a great nation if only we could imprison the entire political class.

You have your rose colored glasses on...I do not. The reality is the nation is declining and most of the political class likes and promotes the decline.

A thriving middle class does not vote for socialism and politicians and government bureaucrats know this, and they love socialism. So, naturally they are doing all they can to eliminate the middle class.

Great idea. Lets imprison all the political opponents just like every crack pot dictator in every third world country, and then we could all be proud of America as truly the land of the free as long as you agree with the ones in charge.

Apparently you are incapable of reading and comprehending.

I stated imprison the ENTIRE political class...you see unlike a leftist who would imprison his/her political opponents, I prefer to imprison all of them.

We must be fair...No?

 

[BULLDOG]

Your claim that America has had presidents that didn't want America to be great is just ridiculous. We have had presidents that made very poor choices, but your claim takes everything out of the realm of reality into a twisted conspiracy theory ruled world of fear and unchecked paranoia. A rational person must see there has to be a limit to claims made for political purposes. Your claim is far beyond that limit.

Bull shit.

I suspect what you consider great and what I do, are two very different things.

I do not consider a nation great with open borders, 100 million working age people NOT working, huge welfare class, shrinking middle class, outrageous income inequality, a huge central government with unlimited power, politicians who are nothing but crooks, a government bureaucracy gone mad, military interventions throughout the world causing raising tensions, dark forces in government running wild...but that is just me I guess.

Do Obamabots like you think America is doing great?

Even though you greatly exaggerate the effects our problems have on us, there are and always will be the need to improve. Just because there is still need for improvement doesn't mean America isn't still the great nation it has always been. Perhaps you should try someplace else if you are so disappointed. Your hysterics are beyond that limit that rational people recognize and adhere to.

America would be a great nation if only we could imprison the entire political class.

You have your rose colored glasses on...I do not. The reality is the nation is declining and most of the political class likes and promotes the decline.

A thriving middle class does not vote for socialism and politicians and government bureaucrats know this, and they love socialism. So, naturally they are doing all they can to eliminate the middle class.

Great idea. Lets imprison all the political opponents just like every crack pot dictator in every third world country, and then we could all be proud of America as truly the land of the free as long as you agree with the ones in charge.

Apparently you are incapable of reading and comprehending.

I stated imprison the ENTIRE political class...you see unlike a leftist who would imprison his/her political opponents, I prefer to imprison all of them.

We must be fair...No?

Oh, so you would be better than a third world dictator because you would imprison more people. Got it.

 

[gipper]

Bull shit.

I suspect what you consider great and what I do, are two very different things.

I do not consider a nation great with open borders, 100 million working age people NOT working, huge welfare class, shrinking middle class, outrageous income inequality, a huge central government with unlimited power, politicians who are nothing but crooks, a government bureaucracy gone mad, military interventions throughout the world causing raising tensions, dark forces in government running wild...but that is just me I guess.

Do Obamabots like you think America is doing great?

Even though you greatly exaggerate the effects our problems have on us, there are and always will be the need to improve. Just because there is still need for improvement doesn't mean America isn't still the great nation it has always been. Perhaps you should try someplace else if you are so disappointed. Your hysterics are beyond that limit that rational people recognize and adhere to.

America would be a great nation if only we could imprison the entire political class.

You have your rose colored glasses on...I do not. The reality is the nation is declining and most of the political class likes and promotes the decline.

A thriving middle class does not vote for socialism and politicians and government bureaucrats know this, and they love socialism. So, naturally they are doing all they can to eliminate the middle class.

Great idea. Lets imprison all the political opponents just like every crack pot dictator in every third world country, and then we could all be proud of America as truly the land of the free as long as you agree with the ones in charge.

Apparently you are incapable of reading and comprehending.

I stated imprison the ENTIRE political class...you see unlike a leftist who would imprison his/her political opponents, I prefer to imprison all of them.

We must be fair...No?

Oh, so you would be better than a third world dictator because you would imprison more people. Got it.

Silly you...you think our politicians are not deserving of imprisonment. How can that be?

Criminals deserve imprisonment. No?

 

[BULLDOG]

Even though you greatly exaggerate the effects our problems have on us, there are and always will be the need to improve. Just because there is still need for improvement doesn't mean America isn't still the great nation it has always been. Perhaps you should try someplace else if you are so disappointed. Your hysterics are beyond that limit that rational people recognize and adhere to.

America would be a great nation if only we could imprison the entire political class.

You have your rose colored glasses on...I do not. The reality is the nation is declining and most of the political class likes and promotes the decline.

A thriving middle class does not vote for socialism and politicians and government bureaucrats know this, and they love socialism. So, naturally they are doing all they can to eliminate the middle class.

Great idea. Lets imprison all the political opponents just like every crack pot dictator in every third world country, and then we could all be proud of America as truly the land of the free as long as you agree with the ones in charge.

Apparently you are incapable of reading and comprehending.

I stated imprison the ENTIRE political class...you see unlike a leftist who would imprison his/her political opponents, I prefer to imprison all of them.

We must be fair...No?

Oh, so you would be better than a third world dictator because you would imprison more people. Got it.

Silly you...you think our politicians are not deserving of imprisonment. How can that be?

Criminals deserve imprisonment. No?

Well, certainly in your bizarre little imaginary third world.

 

[gipper]

America would be a great nation if only we could imprison the entire political class.

You have your rose colored glasses on...I do not. The reality is the nation is declining and most of the political class likes and promotes the decline.

A thriving middle class does not vote for socialism and politicians and government bureaucrats know this, and they love socialism. So, naturally they are doing all they can to eliminate the middle class.

Great idea. Lets imprison all the political opponents just like every crack pot dictator in every third world country, and then we could all be proud of America as truly the land of the free as long as you agree with the ones in charge.

Apparently you are incapable of reading and comprehending.

I stated imprison the ENTIRE political class...you see unlike a leftist who would imprison his/her political opponents, I prefer to imprison all of them.

We must be fair...No?

Oh, so you would be better than a third world dictator because you would imprison more people. Got it.

Silly you...you think our politicians are not deserving of imprisonment. How can that be?

Criminals deserve imprisonment. No?

Well, certainly in your bizarre little imaginary third world.

Yeah only third world politicians deserve imprisonment. Our wonderful, truthful, and lawful politicians don't.

Can't fix CRAZY!!!

 

[Bush92]

I am watching the screaming crowd at a Trump rally, I am asking why. A purple heart veteran gives a medal to a draft dodger who promises greatness. Google 'the emasculated American male' and you will get 634,000 hits. What is it about a man that I perceive as a insecure narcissist that gives hope to so many?

Harvard professor and Manliness author Harvey C. Mansfield, 'We are attracted to the manly man because he imparts some of his confidence to everyone else.' Maybe so, but I do not see Donald Trump as a manly man, if anything he seems the son of the pampered upper class. Those born to wealth, who cannot imagine poverty's world. He will not even release his tax forms.

A few of the links in my Google search came from conservative sites and were dated after Barack Obama's election. Did the accomplishment of a Black man fuel this sense of powerlessness? Democrats have lost the white vote since Civil Rights legislation. Is this fear and need born of a deep seated racism.

Witness the hatred of Hillary. Today it is email and Benghazi, but do they forget the witch images from her husband's presidency. Is fear and need born too of misogyny. A woman demonized by republicans for so long. Add in immigration, Mexicans, Muslims, where do you place them.

Certain themes dominate, they get it all, freeloaders, the system is rigged, we are a Christian nation, it's the liberal media, words come to form meaning, thinking is absent, thought is absent. When Trump loses in November it will be because it is a rigged system, and the false narrative will continue. Some will believe. Republicans have engaged in these whistle words for sixty years, someone finally took them up. Their appeal has backfired. Republicans were complicit in a creation they now question.

Hitler references are used too often so now one cannot make comparisons. I will make America great again. I will do this. The crowd cheers, and we will be safe again, and strong again. I will have your back, we will keep them out, we will throw them out, they have to go, the crowd chants, signs waves, slogans work on this audience. Nationalism is a double edged sword.

And why does the American, a person who lives in one of the greatest nations feel they need a savior, a powerful man to lead them to some promised land? Trump praises Putin, is a Russia dictator what they want, a strong leader to makes their wrongs right?

The question becomes when did Americans become so weak they needed someone to lead them? What happened to the free individual, the cowboy image, the creators, the proud American, the laborer, and the made in America. What happened to the nation that won all the important battles? What changed?

Harvard professor and author of "Manliness"...mutually exclusive terms.

 

[320 Years of History]

What is it about a man that I perceive as a insecure narcissist that gives hope to so many?

He's very rich, very famous, and says many of the same inane things that those folks have been thinking. Thus, to them, he validates their thinking and empowers them. Indeed, doing that is the main goal of his rhetoric. Listen to his speeches and remarks and do two things:

• Count the number of times he states what he sees as being wrong and/or what's happening.
• Count the number of times he articulates a specific, cogent and coherent tactic for correcting those failings and/or altering those circumstances.

The man's entire approach to politics is 95% or more demagoguery. That's not to say that other pols without exception refrain from demagoguery, but rather than Trump's use of it shows him as being a "one trick pony" who has not other powerful means to gain support for his candidacy.

The rise of Donald Trump has dominated media coverage during these early stages of the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump’s comments on illegal immigration, his call to bar Muslims from entering the U.S., his suggestion that we kill the families of terrorists, and his abrasive insults of both Republican rivals and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton—gaffes that, received wisdom holds, should have ended his candidacy––have only raised his poll numbers further, despite the vehement condemnation of Trump by Democrats and Republicans alike.

For some commentators, the rise of Donald Trump seems a novel development in American presidential politics. The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan called the presidential campaign a “year of wonders,” partly because of Trump’s improbable success. FOX News’ Bill O’Reilly said a potential Trump nomination would be “politics upside-down.” But as the antidemocratic tradition from ancient Greece to the American founding shows, the Trump phenomenon is democratic business-as-usual––and as dangerous.

Demagogues, the manipulators of the masses, exist only because political power is vested in the people. This revolutionary idea, which began among the city-states of ancient Greece, immediately provoked a critical response. How do we know the people are qualified to debate, deliberate, and vote on policy? Do they have the wisdom and virtue to know what policies will improve the state now and for the future? Critics like the Old Oligarch, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others thought not. The average citizen lacks knowledge, is concerned with his own narrow interests, and cannot keep his passions from overwhelming his judgment. As such, the masses are like “a river swollen with winter rain: they rush blindly forward and sweep things before them,” as the historian Herodotus has a Persian critic of democracy put it. Given power, they will direct policy to their short-term interests and transient passions, endangering the state as a whole.

The founders of the American Constitution likewise worried about the ignorance and self-interest of the masses. John Adams commented that few ordinary people “were much read in the history, laws, or politics, even of their own, not to mention other states, from whose rises, revolutions, and declensions the great landmarks of legislation and government are taken.” New York’s Melancton Smith answered charges of preferring an oligarchical government by warning about “the unjust, the selfish, the unsocial feelings” that would overwhelm a more democratic government, one where “the vices, the infirmities, the passions of the people” would dominate. And during the Constitutional Convention, Elbridge Gerry attributed the political disorder in the state governments to “the excesses of democracy. The people do not want virtue; but are the dupes of pretended patriots,” and “are daily misled into the most baneful measures and opinions by the false reports circulated by designing men.”

Gerry’s last warning evokes the traditional criticism of democracy going back to Athens: that the people are prey to the machinations of “worthless demagogues,” as Aristotle called them, the office-holders and orators in the Assembly who manipulate and misuse language to inveigle the masses into pursuing policies the main beneficiary of which will be the politician.

In ancient Athens, one of the most notorious was Cleon, who after Pericles died in 429 B.C., rose to leadership in Athens during the Peloponnesian War. Opponents of Athenian direct democracy, like the comic poet Aristophanes, looked down on Cleon in part because his wealth came from tanning, a highly malodorous industry since urine was used to loosen the hair from the skins. Thucydides called him “the most powerful with The People” since he championed the interests of the poor against the rich. And Cleon’s rhetoric was as distasteful as the family business. In the Constitution of Athens, Cleon is said to be “the first to use unseemly shouting and coarse abuse on the Bema,” lowering the dignity of deliberation and debate.

So too today the political “establishment,” Republicans and Democrats alike, criticizes Donald Trump as a “demagogue.” Like Cleon, Trump’s wealth comes from déclassé enterprises like real estate deals and casino development. He too uses coarse language and personal attacks such as calling opponents and critics “scum,” “loser,” and “stupid,” even using a Yiddish vulgarity in some comments about Hillary Clinton. And critics explain his success with “the people” by noting his ability to pander to the disaffected average Republican voter, who is angry over the dysfunction in Washington, insecure economically, and fearful of terrorist attacks. The result is what many Republicans consider Trump’s ill-considered “baneful measures,” such as building a wall on our southern border, or “bombing the [expletive]” out of ISIS.

Yet implied in the criticism of the demagogue is the ancient distrust of the average voter’s intelligence or irrational passions. What else explains the average citizen’s vulnerability to the scheming demagogue’s duplicitous rhetoric? This underlying wariness of the people characterizes both parties. Barack Obama let this prejudice slip out in his 2008 presidential campaign when he spoke of some Americans as “bitter clingers” to “guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them.” We see this disdain as well in the standard Democratic charge that Republican voters are “anti-science” because they question liberal causes like apocalyptic climate change.

Republicans are not as shy about criticizing what talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh calls the “low-information voter.” But even the more cautious political leaders display the same distrust. As the Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn points out, Trump’s Republican critics, when they “respond by tut-tutting about how distasteful they find him—instead of showing why his argument is full of holes—they too come across as condescending, implicitly sharing the president’s belief that the knuckle-dragging American public just can’t handle the truth.”

The other traditional characteristic of the demagogue is his promise to the masses to redistribute the wealth of the better off whom the demagogue demonizes in order to curry the people’s support. According to Plutarch, Cleon was “rough and heavy against the upper classes and subjected himself to the masses in order to win their favor.” Cleon raised taxes on the rich, and increased the pay of jurors––a major entitlement for Athenian citizens––by a third.

This practice of the demagogue is obvious in the class-warfare rhetoric of Democrats, who use phrases like “one percent” and “fair share” to imply that the wealthy are unfairly gaming the economy at the expense of the people. Hillary Clinton’s campaign platform, for example, claims, “Our democracy should work for everyone, not just the wealthy and well-connected,” and “With near-record corporate profits and stagnant wages, the deck is stacked against working Americans.” Her solutions are essentially direct or indirect redistributionist government laws and programs––“investment” in “infrastructure” or “early learning,” for example. She also calls on companies “to share profits with their employees,” and the wealthiest to “pay their fair share” in order “to pay for her plan to make college affordable and refinance student debt.” Needless to say, all this largesse will be funded by the 2.4 percent of federal taxpayers who already pay about half of all federal income taxes.

Republicans, of course, also indulge in the same populist rhetoric. A common theme in the primary campaign has been attacks against the “Washington establishment” and “RINOs,” or Republicans In Name Only. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House John Boehner, before his retirement, were excoriated by many Republicans for being “inside the Beltway” elites more concerned with institutional perks and comity than with principle. Ex-governors running for president like Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, and Chris Christie exploit this animus against D.C. “insiders” and “consultants” who are insulated from the issues concerning the people. So too do Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump, who has promoted his business experience and success in the real world of accountability, profit, and loss as a corrective to the out-of-touch elites in Congress. Trump, for example, has boasted, “I have made the tough decisions, always with an eye toward the bottom line. Perhaps it’s time America was run like a business,” implying that the problems facing the country can be solved by the same techniques used in real estate and casino management.

This dynamic of “demagogues” and the “masses,” then, is not a novel dysfunction of today’s democracy, but an inevitable consequence that follows the political freedom and empowerment of large numbers of diverse peoples and factions. Getting elected to office requires that, at some level, no matter how camouflaged with the rhetoric of principle or technical expertise, substantial numbers of the people have to be flattered and bribed, their “passions and interests,” as James Madison put it, indulged and satisfied.

Equally timeless are the dangers of this dynamic, which explain why the Founders crafted a mixed government of balanced powers: It protected the freedom of both the masses and the elites. The people were empowered to elect directly just one house of Congress, with the remaining office-holders chosen indirectly by state legislatures or executive appointments confirmed by the Senate. In the last century, this Constitutional order has been altered. The Senate is now directly elected by the people, making it more democratic, and the Presidency has expanded its scope and powers far beyond the limits the Founders created in order to protect liberty from concentrated and centralized power.

This weakening of the Constitutional order has facilitated the “imperial presidency” that can easily become demagogic, if not tyrannical. Moreover, without the “filtrations,” as Madison called it, of indirect election, the demagogue has much greater opportunities for directly manipulating and bribing the people in order to gain power, unhampered by Constitutional checks and balances. Finally, the new communication technologies––cable news, blogs, daily polls, internet sites, tweets, and millions of cell phones that can instantly record words and images––have given demagogues tools much more powerful and effective than the public speeches and printed broadsides of the past.

Yet this danger does not mean that we are condemned to suffer the gloomy prediction of Fisher Ames, the late eighteenth-century antidemocratic Representative from Massachusetts: “A democracy is a volcano, which conceals the fiery elements of its own destruction.” Voters still have the right to vote, and millions in their daily lives demonstrate enough common sense and virtue to qualify them for choosing their leaders. The question is still open whether a critical mass of American voters fit the profile of the self-interested, irrational “masses” easily manipulated by demagogues. The electoral choices of 2016 may settle that question.

 

[jasonnfree]

I am watching the screaming crowd at a Trump rally, I am asking why. A purple heart veteran gives a medal to a draft dodger who promises greatness. Google 'the emasculated American male' and you will get 634,000 hits. What is it about a man that I perceive as a insecure narcissist that gives hope to so many?

Harvard professor and Manliness author Harvey C. Mansfield, 'We are attracted to the manly man because he imparts some of his confidence to everyone else.' Maybe so, but I do not see Donald Trump as a manly man, if anything he seems the son of the pampered upper class. Those born to wealth, who cannot imagine poverty's world. He will not even release his tax forms.

A few of the links in my Google search came from conservative sites and were dated after Barack Obama's election. Did the accomplishment of a Black man fuel this sense of powerlessness? Democrats have lost the white vote since Civil Rights legislation. Is this fear and need born of a deep seated racism.

Witness the hatred of Hillary. Today it is email and Benghazi, but do they forget the witch images from her husband's presidency. Is fear and need born too of misogyny. A woman demonized by republicans for so long. Add in immigration, Mexicans, Muslims, where do you place them.

Certain themes dominate, they get it all, freeloaders, the system is rigged, we are a Christian nation, it's the liberal media, words come to form meaning, thinking is absent, thought is absent. When Trump loses in November it will be because it is a rigged system, and the false narrative will continue. Some will believe. Republicans have engaged in these whistle words for sixty years, someone finally took them up. Their appeal has backfired. Republicans were complicit in a creation they now question.

Hitler references are used too often so now one cannot make comparisons. I will make America great again. I will do this. The crowd cheers, and we will be safe again, and strong again. I will have your back, we will keep them out, we will throw them out, they have to go, the crowd chants, signs waves, slogans work on this audience. Nationalism is a double edged sword.

And why does the American, a person who lives in one of the greatest nations feel they need a savior, a powerful man to lead them to some promised land? Trump praises Putin, is a Russia dictator what they want, a strong leader to makes their wrongs right?

The question becomes when did Americans become so weak they needed someone to lead them? What happened to the free individual, the cowboy image, the creators, the proud American, the laborer, and the made in America. What happened to the nation that won all the important battles? What changed?

Most of those people from our past, free individuals, cowboys, creators, laborers that made America, would be voting for Trump today, guaranteed. I can't imagine any of our ww2 vets from the great generation even considering a hillary candidate as anything but totally corrupt and unamerican. They would be horrified at a president flooding our country with 3rd world immigrants from countries who hate us also. If you were part of post ww2 America, which I doubt, you'd know that most of the immigrants who came to this country were from Europe. Countries with backgrounds and traditions similar to ours. First thing on their list was speak english. And they'd tell kids like me how great America was and I should be thankful to be born here. The great generation would be horrified at seeing what's happening to our country with sexual misfits and hoodlums being praised by our president. I went to a party of a 90 year old person yesterday who told me the very same thing. She's worried about her great and great great grandchildren growing up in a hillary's America.

 

[Bush92]

Again let me point out the obvious. "Harvard Professor" wants to educate people on"manliness." Nuff said.

 

[pismoe]

Again let me point out the obvious. "Harvard Professor" wants to educate people on"manliness." Nuff said.

--------------------------- yep , pretty funny Bush !!

 

[pismoe]

oh man , good , good post JasonFree !!!

 

[Holos]

This dynamic of “demagogues” and the “masses,” then, is not a novel dysfunction of today’s democracy, but an inevitable consequence that follows the political freedom and empowerment of large numbers of diverse peoples and factions.

Dated 10.000 B.C.E., proven by radiocarbon analysis of painted pot fragments.

 

[320 Years of History]

Again let me point out the obvious. "Harvard Professor" wants to educate people on"manliness." Nuff said.

Oh, dear.....

 

[midcan5]

I did not find a good counterpoint among the replies. I'm older than most here and remember people who supported America by supporting made here, unions, local business, and each other. It seems sometimes only periods like the great depression have the power to bring people together. Building America then, mattered. See Judt comment below.

Jillian, Hello, keep up the good words....

Mudwhistle, ah come on, you let us down with this conspiracy nonsense. Donald Trump is wrong. Rigging an election is almost impossible.

Crusader, thought that short and to the point. Just so you know, I have never worn pajamas in my life, fact. lol

Bulldog, thanks for running interference. Welcome aboard.

320 Years of History, Your OP needed quotes and sourcing: The Demagogues Of 2016

Bush92, is hung up on Harvard professors being manly, to each his own.

Jasonfree, the few WWII vets I know are with Hillary, most Nam etc vets like myself are for H.

Yiostheoy, class is a taboo topic here. Trump supporters run a wide range of people, angry and bitter too. See this piece. Unfiltered Voices From Donald Trump's Crowds


PS one counterpoint from another reader, is that facts don't matter and often, such as with Iraq, or voter registration, or any number of things, when a person is presented with the truth instead of agreeing the person will cling more strongly to their belief.


"Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth. We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them." Tony Judt 'Ill Fares the Land'

 

[Zander]

The "emasculated American" is essentially any Democrat.

The "beta male" imagery of Obamacare's "pajama boy" perfectly captures it.

 

[pismoe]

I did not find a good counterpoint among the replies. I'm older than most here and remember people who supported America by supporting made here, unions, local business, and each other. It seems sometimes only periods like the great depression have the power to bring people together. Building America then, mattered. See Judt comment below.

Jillian, Hello, keep up the good words....

Mudwhistle, ah come on, you let us down with this conspiracy nonsense. Donald Trump is wrong. Rigging an election is almost impossible.

Crusader, thought that short and to the point. Just so you know, I have never worn pajamas in my life, fact. lol

Bulldog, thanks for running interference. Welcome aboard.

320 Years of History, Your OP needed quotes and sourcing: The Demagogues Of 2016

Bush92, is hung up on Harvard professors being manly, to each his own.

Jasonfree, the few WWII vets I know are with Hillary, most Nam etc vets like myself are for H.

Yiostheoy, class is a taboo topic here. Trump supporters run a wide range of people, angry and bitter too. See this piece. Unfiltered Voices From Donald Trump's Crowds


PS one counterpoint from another reader, is that facts don't matter and often, such as with Iraq, or voter registration, or any number of things, when a person is presented with the truth instead of agreeing the person will cling more strongly to their belief.


"Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth. We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them." Tony Judt 'Ill Fares the Land'

-------------------------------- yep , MidCan is a longwinded progressive !!

 

[flacaltenn]

Mod Message:

Respect the forum you are in. 5 posts deleted. People will start getting deported back "over the border" if this keeps up..

 

[jillian]

Again let me point out the obvious. "Harvard Professor" wants to educate people on"manliness." Nuff said.

Why would you put Harvard professor in quotes.

And why would you think you're more of a man than well. Anyone?