A thought that has occurred to me in the last two weeks, during the election all the polls skewed heavily to Clinton and Trump won. This was largely in part to bad polling data where people who were voting trump didn't own it when talking to pollsters. Now, post-election I am seeing an outpouring of protests against Trump and very little if any support of his decisions/policies. Where is his base? Did they evaporate or is this another case of his supporters not owning up to their support?
The supporters spent 8 yrs being told they were the enemy. They've won. They'll sit back and watch the left continue to melt down
You kidding? For those on the right, the past 8 years the supporters have been focused almost totally on how much the democrats were the enemy. It was on fox news, on talk radio, on the breitbart and other websites. The far right, and much of the right in general, for the past 8+ years, has been almost purely anti-liberal, anti-obama. The tea party made their agenda grinding the country to a legislative halt. Most republicans followed suit. An entire year of OBama's term they prevented a Supreme court pick from being appointed because they could. They blocked, stonewalled, and took us to the brink of default so many times its' not even funny. Truly unfit, as a party, to govern - just an opposition party devoid of ideas.
Look at the 50+ votes to repeal Obamacare under Obama. The republicans knew it would never go through, and it was purely symbolic, so they did it again and again, but when they won, and they could ACTUALLY repeal it, they have no #######' clue what they're gonna do. Same thing about the Iran deal, that Trump bashed on the campaign trail, turns out he's not gonna touch it. The want to roll back regulations, cut taxes, and no longer care a whit about the deficit. They'll bend over and pay billions for a wall that is essentially useless, driving up the deficit, for what? And Mexico is going to pay for it? Lmao...the solutions the administration are floating don't even make economic sense and will likely end up being paid for by, you guessed it, the American people. An infrastructure bill and tax reform that will balloon the deficit that they've been lambasting Democrats about, pretending that they care. It's a farce.
The Republican party has been one that has been almost entirely overrun by hot air, by being united around what they're against (liberals and obama), with little focus on what they are for. This is how Donald Trump gets elected, because he is against all the things they're against, and he was the loudest, most abrasive person in the room talking down those they disagreed with. He out-hated all the other republican candidates and untied people behind him not because of his policies, but because he was the biggest bully in the room and validated all of their prejudices (not only racial, but prejudices about liberals, immigrants, refugees, "inner city folk", etc). He threw enough generic ideas out for people to pretend they cared about policies - "renegotiate terrible iran deal", "fix the healthcare system", "fix the broken immigration system", and then he invented other "crises" that don't exist like ridiculous crime surgest across the country all the while we're near all-time lows in almost all of the country. It's truly bat#### insane that people bought into this, but it shows you how simply hatred-driven the entire wing of the party has become, and how devoid of ideas they are.
So, he somehow wins...and you know he and his team didn't ever expect to win and actually have to, you know, deliver on their promises and complaints (much like the republicans who vote repeal repeal repeal to obamacare without any alternative, knowing full well they'll never have to answer the question "what would you do better?" because Obama was still president)...and now people are understanding what happens when you vote for someone just because they're against the same people you're against, and especially when you vote for the biggest, most abrasive, most boorish, most politically incorrect person in the race. You get someone SUPREMELY unsuited for the job, who can't handle calls with allies, who acts impulsively and impetuously, who lies habitually, who has thin skin and can't seem to get out of campaign mode where he got away with his lies and half-truths because he was against the same folks his supporters were against.
So now a party somehow finds itself holding the keys to the country they said was headed in the wrong direction, who pointed out at every turn how almost everything being done was horrible, and now they can't seem to do much right. They're just now grappling with the implications of their rhetoric...it is absolutely sickeningly embarrassing to watch Trump and the Republicans try to run the country right now.
Trump's boorish and ridiculous actions, EO and calls with foreign leaders included, are not unexpected. He was going to make bad decisions, he was going to choose bad folks for appointments. He was going to piss people off, say politically incorrect things, and generally muck up the system. But all of the Republicans who are spineless, Paul Ryan especially, to stand up to him are the most pathetic out of all of them. Their precious and fleeting political careers are worth more to them than their integrity. Even those with the most integrity on the right are only doing half-assed jobs of calling out Trump when he deserves it.
HIs press secretary repeatedly puts out false information. Kellyanne Conway repeatedly puts out false information. He's waging a war on the media and anyone critical of him.
The whole thing is an American disgrace and people for generations will look back on this presidency with shame, provided he doesn't screw things up to a sufficient degree that we aren't around in generations. Does anyone doubt his ability to escalate a normal diplomatic situation into a crisis, and for the sake of his ego, not back down and plunge us into war? What about indefinitely increased tensions with other nations who aren't favorably disposed to us?
All of this we have because an entire party, and entire political group, became united around who they were against, rather than what they are for. Yet just like Donald Trump did in the campaign, where he accused the other party of all of his faults (find his accusations against Hillary, and they're all applicable to him to a higher degree - Crooked Hillary, while Donald Trump is still getting more income off his business holdings while president? Are you F'ng kidding me? No tax returns released?) in the quote above TommyBoy is accusing the liberals of EXACTLY the behavior the right is guilty of. The left, for the past 8 years, hasn't been focused on the right...the left, has been trying to move things forward with Obama at the helm trying to move the country in a direction according to liberal ideals and the best economics and policies out there. On the other hand, the party without the presidency has been hell-bent on bringing Obama down, on doing everything possible to oppose him at every turn.
So yeah, it's ridiculous to hear the right pretend that they've been victimized for 8 years. What's even more ridiculous is watching republican leaders, Trump included, try to govern themselves out of a paper bag and failing tremendously.
Oh, and "in" before this response is simply dismissed as being "unhinged" or other such nonsense, dismissing the post as a whole in one judgment rather than engaging on any specific points. It's easier to just take something as a whole, pass a judgment on it, and dismiss it than actually disagree with points in a post.
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