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Conway on Trump (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Maurile Tremblay
- Start date
Not a dumb question. I think people see Supreme Court appointments as a way to influence the country for 20-30 years as opposed to the term the President will have. I think it's applicable for people that lean both conservative or liberal but I do seem to see it focused strategically more to Republican voters.
Thanks but to what end? As in what are the specific influences they are hoping for? LGBT rights, abortion? Outside of those two topics, I'm unclear on what significant influence it has. I mean, I'm sure the people with $50M+ in the bank are hoping a wealth tax will be deemed unconstitutional...
I think people put a high super high value on Supreme Court and they prefer Justices who they feel will operate in a way they'd like. I don't know they have specific issues in mind. I think most people feel whatever cases they're ruling on are important and they all influence our country in a non trivial way.
I know there's lots of people who think the conservative or liberal Supreme Court Justice thing is a myth and they're all neutral but I think most people feel like they'd much prefer a Justice that lines up with them.
It seems to me, it's playing the long game which I'm always a favor of.
Your friends that voted for him for the Supreme Court... are they climate change deniers? I only ask because, after seeing what trump has done to the EPA (which was very predictable to anyone even halfway paying attention), you might want to question their long game mentality.
I don't think they're denying the changes there.Your friends that voted for him for the Supreme Court... are they climate change deniers? I only ask because, after seeing what trump has done to the EPA (which was very predictable to anyone even halfway paying attention), you might want to question their long game mentality.
I'm just saying, trump has set back climate change progress by a ton. Won't matter to anyone who is sitting on the SC if we're dealing with a climate catastrophe, so if these people think themselves to be cleverly playing the long game, I fear they are actually being played. Either way, thanks for the insight.
CentralPA
Footballguy
I always thought a SCJ terms for life (or I guess retirement?) should be ratified, especially when types like Brett Kavanaugh are appointed.
![[scooter]](/data/avatars/m/22/22287.jpg?1659477690){kind=avatar}
[scooter]
Footballguy
Here's what I think conservatives are hoping to get from the Supreme Court:
- roll back (or at least slow the expansion of) LGBT rights
- protect the religious rights of Christians (but that mostly overlaps with the LGBT thing)
- protect the 2nd Amendment ("Dey terk er gunnnnnnnns"*)
- overturn Roe v Wade -- or, if that's not feasible, then restrict access to abortion in any way possible
- stop the encroachment of socialism (either by overturning liberal legislature such as Obamacare, or by upholding conservative legislature such as massive welfare cuts)
* ©South Park
dgreen
Footballguy
Prayer in school. I hear several Christians point to that ruling as the beginning of our country's decline.
Understood. But because that likely won't happen is exactly why people put so much weight on who gets to appoint them.
The Constitution says “during good behavior” rather than “for life,” so they can be impeached.
CentralPA
Footballguy
Absolutely. That is why I think it needs to be ratified. Maybe a ten year term possibly instead of status quo.
But as said before, that will probably never happen.
And that's a real thing.
The picture in @FF Ninja's post is a tweet that says, "I’m an Evangelical Christian and my circles keep saying they voted for trump because of his “Christian” values. Is there another Bible that I don’t know about?"
Again, this is my anecdotal experience but in my opinion, this position is WAY more popular than most people believe. It's certainly how I feel. I think it's how Dr. Russell Moore of the pretty conservative and influential Southern Baptist Association feels. It's how Relevant Magazine feels. I think it's how a LOT of Christians feel.
Clearly, the Franklin Grahams and the Jerry Falwell Jrs. feel differently. But I think there's a perception that all Christians are in lockstep with Graham and Falwell. And I don't that's at all the case.
And yes, I'm sensitive to it as I think the trouble with the "I’m an Evangelical Christian and my circles keep saying they voted for trump because of his “Christian” values. Is there another Bible that I don’t know about?" is real. And separate from our country, I think it's a significant problem for Christians.
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A good article on the topic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/evangelical-christians-face-deepening-crisis/593353/
CentralPA
Footballguy
jomar
Footballguy
have you considered the possibility that your Trump supporting friends and family maybe aren't as good of people as you thought they were? I can get voting for Trump in 2016, but if they're still supporting the guy after all we've seen, I have to question their morality and maybe they aren't who I thought they were
I think this question is really hard because you can list off quite a few items of importance to someone to frame the question, but at the end of the day, we're talking about a four year term. This person is going to be presented with so many important dilemmas and forks in the road and we simply can't trust a person with low moral character to make the right calls. And if he's done enough actions to prove that he's of low moral character then that means he's made plenty of wrong choices already. So you're essentially asking if we'd put a person with a history of poor decisions into a position to make the most important decisions in the country... if we get our way on a few.
It seems inevitable that he or she would make some bad choices for the country, so you're asking us if getting a few selected issues right outweighs the unknown issues he/she will get wrong. I know that's not what you are intending to ask, but that's still how it plays out when I start to give it thought.
In the spirit of the question, though, I'd say that I would absolutely vote for a flawed individual that knows right from wrong. Like if the person had done a lot of things I disagreed with but I thought would still be able to make the right call when it mattered. Like maybe he said religion is stupid, but made it clear he'd maintain religious rights. Or if he cheated on his wife and acknowledged it was a mistake. Or maybe they're in an open relationship or maybe married a cousin or something odd like that. Life choices and opinions I don't agree with are fine as long as I can trust they'll do the right thing when presented with right and wrong as the president. Or maybe they've got a bunch of DUIs. I'm not electing the person to be my uber driver or to make the right decision while drunk. I only care that when they're sober, they're making the right calls.
If Mike Pence has any moral fiber, it's not enough. So I give him an "F" on moral character. He might score a 68% on his moral character test versus trump's 0%, but that's still a failing grade.
This did remind me of an interesting article, though.
Not to veer this off track too much, but I do think it's a real thing about how Christians are supposed to feel about "politics".
Again, one has to understand a Christians worldview in they believe the Bible. I fully understand you may not believe the Bible but to understand the Christian, you have to understand they do.
There's lots of stuff in the Old Testament part (I don't mean to be condescending but that's basically the timeline of Creation of the World to before birth of Jesus) where it talks about "nations" and how they followed or turned away from God. Bottom line, it was better for the nations when they followed God.
On the flip side, most of the New Testament (Starting pretty much with the birth of Jesus and going forward) was written when Christians were very much not part of a "Christian Nation". When they were actively persecuted and killed for their faith. (Don't get me started on American Christians claiming persecution. I tell them to go talk to Christians in China or Iraq and get back to me). A ton of the Christian faith is outlined in the bible from the perspective of people having less than zero political influence.
So it's interesting situation for modern day Christians.
Again, one has to understand a Christians worldview in they believe the Bible. I fully understand you may not believe the Bible but to understand the Christian, you have to understand they do.
There's lots of stuff in the Old Testament part (I don't mean to be condescending but that's basically the timeline of Creation of the World to before birth of Jesus) where it talks about "nations" and how they followed or turned away from God. Bottom line, it was better for the nations when they followed God.
On the flip side, most of the New Testament (Starting pretty much with the birth of Jesus and going forward) was written when Christians were very much not part of a "Christian Nation". When they were actively persecuted and killed for their faith. (Don't get me started on American Christians claiming persecution. I tell them to go talk to Christians in China or Iraq and get back to me). A ton of the Christian faith is outlined in the bible from the perspective of people having less than zero political influence.
So it's interesting situation for modern day Christians.
CentralPA
Footballguy
Interpreting the Holy Bible to today's political climate and American culture is certainly a very very grey area.
dgreen
Footballguy
Back to the article in the OP, assuming Trump does have some pathological disorders, how does that change views of everything surrounding him? I know I've seen posts here the last few years saying they think Trump has mental health issues. When I've seen those posts, I wonder if someone truly believes that, should that change what names they call him and how he's labeled? I don't know enough about these mental illnesses to know if it makes sense to both label him a pathological narcissist and sociopath while also calling him a bad/evil/horrible person.
That is a rather philosophical question.
One view is that nobody desires evil, and nobody does wrong willfully or knowingly. When people do wrong, it is an error derived from a lack of wisdom (because all virtue is wisdom). That is the view attributed to Socrates, for example.
The less esoteric view would be that psychopaths often do evil things precisely because they are psychopaths. Narcissists, too. They care only about themselves and are therefore willing to harm others to get what they want, and we call that being a bad person.
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Thank you. That's a thoughtful question. Maurile has a good answer.
For me, it's a reminder that I need to be thoughtful and therefore careful with how piling in criticisms.
urbanhack
Fight The Power!
Protecting corporations instead of the middle and working class. Weird that they do this against their own best interest, but it is what it is and has been for some time.
jomar
Footballguy
I guess this is a 'No'? its a hard thing to even question, I get it. I met a Trump supporting friend of 30+ years for happy hour a couple months ago. We were talking politics and other sensitive topics and at some point he started spouting some White Nationalist rhetoric and I had to stop him. I think he had no idea what he was saying, he was just parroting what he heard from Tucker Carlson or whoever, but I was pretty taken aback. I haven't been in touch with him since and have no plans to, at least until this crap blows over (and hopefully it does). Had a similar exchange with a family member a couple weeks ago and we are not on speaking terms anymore and I'm fine with that. the fact is that we think we might know people, but you don't really know what kind of crap they keep down below the surface.
I'm making it a point to surround myself with kind, caring, positive people who treat others the way they want to be treated. no more will I tolerate friends and family who harbor hatred (or support people who harbor hatred) toward gay people, foreign immigrants, people of color, etc. I can live without those kind of people and be fine with it. I don't need that crap in my life and around my kids.
joffer
Footballguy
i've wrestled with this a little, and here's the best i've come up with.
i know hard-core Trump supporters who i think are very kind, caring people. i know they'd help me out if i'm in a jam, they've raised terrific kids, and they don't go around tripping old people in their spare time. I would definitely not call them "bad people". However, IMHO they (conservatives) tend to direct more their empathy, concern, and generosity for people that they know and are more like them (friends, family, co-workers, etc.). Not to say they don't have concern for strangers, but those strangers get less attention when they are struggling or facing adversity than a friend would.
Liberals, i think, tend to divide their empathy and concern more equally between strangers and friends. they feel just as bad when they read somewhere that a stranger lost a job as if one of their friends lost a job.
Trump obviously cares more for people like him than not like him. that's obviously more appealing to conservatives.
that's oversimplified, but its kind of where i'm at right now.
I find the whole topic to be a great litmus test. I don't go out of my way to bring it up, but I do greatly enjoy knowing who voted for trump in 2016, who still supports him, and why. Personally, this is how I personally tally it:
If you voted for him in 2016, red flag on your judgment for the rest of your life.
If you voted for him in 2016 and still don't regret it, your opinion is worthless to me forever.
If you say something like "I can't vote for Warren bc she's a liar, so I'm going to vote for trump" then you're hypocritical garbage and I'll never speak to you again.
There are of course a few small grey areas. But that's how I've been using the litmus test. I'm a lucky one, though. I literally don't have any blood that voted for trump, and even though I've got plenty of conservative friends (I'm from the south), they all know trump is a reprehensible human being. But like it seems everyone does, I've got a couple in-laws that voted for trump, but I wasn't close to them beforehand. The only one that I was semi-close with, I've successfully turned her off from voting for him again in 2020. Really wasn't that hard. Just a couple conversations with some facts. The problem with a lot of them is that they're just
I started Joel Stein's new book, In Defense of Elitism, last night. (Great read so far; highly recommended.) It led me to do a YouTube search for Miami, Texas. And that led me to this video: Roberts County: A Year in the Most Pro-Trump Town.
Over 95% of the votes in Roberts County went to Trump. The video does a decent job of profiling a few of the people there, giving a sense of why they support Trump. It caused me to realize that, as much as the present-day me thinks there is no legitimate reason to support Trump, a hypothetical me who grew up in that town would probably be a Trump supporter. The base rate is 95%. If I give myself some benefit of the doubt, maybe I'd be less than 95% likely to be a Trump supporter if I spent my life there. But surely I'd be at least 85% likely. That strikes me as kind of weird, but also kind of inescapable.
I've wondered before, if I'd grown up in the antebellum South, how likely would I have been to become an abolitionist? I don't know the answer, but it's surely much lower than I'd like to think.
In any case, I recommend watching the video and trying to imagine what your thought process would be like if that's where you grew up. Note that this county is not full of dumb hicks. It is extremely rural (the city of Miami has more square miles than it does residents). But the populace is better educated than the national average and wealthier than the national average. And the people (especially as described in the book, but you get a sense of it from the video as well) are extremely friendly, even to Jewish northeasterners descending upon their town to write mockingly of them.
timschochet and Ramblin' Wreck were arguing a few days ago in another thread about whether people can be fully aware of their own motivations for their political positions. I strongly side with tim. The motivations that we are consciously aware of are often post-hoc rationalizations that obscure the subconscious thoughts actually responsible for our positions. I don't want to get too far into the psychological research on this topic, but some of the split-brain experiments quite humorously (and convincingly) make this point. In any case, I believe that a lot of our subconscious reasons for holding various beliefs are social. We want to be trusted; we want to be respected; we don't want to be perceived as immoral. In a town where any Clinton supporter is immediately morally suspect, a person would have strong subconscious reasons for supporting Trump. Any person would -- including me and including you.
So while we're judging people from Miami, Texas or similar areas for supporting Trump, we should keep in mind that we'd probably be 85% likely to support Trump if we were from there as well. There but for the grace of God go all of us.
Over 95% of the votes in Roberts County went to Trump. The video does a decent job of profiling a few of the people there, giving a sense of why they support Trump. It caused me to realize that, as much as the present-day me thinks there is no legitimate reason to support Trump, a hypothetical me who grew up in that town would probably be a Trump supporter. The base rate is 95%. If I give myself some benefit of the doubt, maybe I'd be less than 95% likely to be a Trump supporter if I spent my life there. But surely I'd be at least 85% likely. That strikes me as kind of weird, but also kind of inescapable.
I've wondered before, if I'd grown up in the antebellum South, how likely would I have been to become an abolitionist? I don't know the answer, but it's surely much lower than I'd like to think.
In any case, I recommend watching the video and trying to imagine what your thought process would be like if that's where you grew up. Note that this county is not full of dumb hicks. It is extremely rural (the city of Miami has more square miles than it does residents). But the populace is better educated than the national average and wealthier than the national average. And the people (especially as described in the book, but you get a sense of it from the video as well) are extremely friendly, even to Jewish northeasterners descending upon their town to write mockingly of them.
timschochet and Ramblin' Wreck were arguing a few days ago in another thread about whether people can be fully aware of their own motivations for their political positions. I strongly side with tim. The motivations that we are consciously aware of are often post-hoc rationalizations that obscure the subconscious thoughts actually responsible for our positions. I don't want to get too far into the psychological research on this topic, but some of the split-brain experiments quite humorously (and convincingly) make this point. In any case, I believe that a lot of our subconscious reasons for holding various beliefs are social. We want to be trusted; we want to be respected; we don't want to be perceived as immoral. In a town where any Clinton supporter is immediately morally suspect, a person would have strong subconscious reasons for supporting Trump. Any person would -- including me and including you.
So while we're judging people from Miami, Texas or similar areas for supporting Trump, we should keep in mind that we'd probably be 85% likely to support Trump if we were from there as well. There but for the grace of God go all of us.
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whoknew
Footballguy
Thanks for posting. Just watched it.
I had a couple of conflicting thoughts while watching.
First, most of the people seemed like nice and decent people. I think if I met them and had a drink or dinner with them, I'd probably get along and like them.
But, as always, its hard to reconcile that with their support of the awful, horrible things Trump has done and continues to do. The #1 issue to almost everyone in that show was the repeal of the estate tax. Because that's what would help them - individually - the most.
I get that. But it just seems so incredibly selfish. How can they not care about the damage he does?
And, of course, there is the justifying Trump's awful non-christian behavior.
So while they all seem like kind, decent people ... come on, man. Wake the hell up.
ETA: I forgot to add something about Sonya. They all obviously like her and treat her as a neighbor. But she clearly isn't thrilled with Trump's stances on Mexican immigrants. And isn't comfortable bringing it up around her neighbors. And they say things that hurt her and she just keeps it inside.
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msommer
Footballguy
I agree and at the same time disagree with this, because people have the possibility of change, of moving, of experiencing life beyond the bubble of e.g. Miami, Texas, moreso today than 30 years ago. I tend to think there is a lot of self selection going on in these bubbles (not merely the trump loving ones), and a good deal of keeping your head down/going with the flow (and thus abdicating of moral grounds/real estate).
Godsbrother
Footballguy
I think this is true of religion: most religious Christians would likely be religious Muslims if they were born and raised that way and vice versa.
However I was brought up in a very Roman Catholic family, was an altar boy, choir boy, went to Catholic grade school. When I got married my wife converted to Catholicism, we raised our three children as Catholics and went to church every week. All that time I was believer but there was always a lingering doubt in my faith. Over the years I have come to be the belief that there may be a God or Gods but I don't really buy much of what I was taught or what the bible says. I am not saying it isn't true but it certainly doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
In any case my point is that while where you grow up and what you were taught to believe certainly are a significant factor, it doesn't excuse voting for a vile or corrupt person* just because of the letter next to their name.
* not necessarily Donald Trump, it could be anyone that is of low character
SHIZNITTTT
Footballguy
Kelly Anne Conway - Let me tell you something, from a powerful woman. Don’t pull the crap where you’re trying to undercut another woman based on who she’s married to. He gets his power through me, if you haven’t noticed. Not the other way around.
Kelly Anne https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/transcript-of-telephone-call-between-kellyanne-conway-and-caitlin-yilek
Kelly Anne https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/transcript-of-telephone-call-between-kellyanne-conway-and-caitlin-yilek
Godsbrother
Footballguy
As much as I disagree with her on most things I think she has a point in this case. If you're reporting that she is in the middle of a conflict between her husband and her boss maybe you should make an attempt to actually talk to her.Sinn Fein said:She's a real
