2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumScott Adams (Dilbert): "Her new scare tactics are solid-gold persuasion"
Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams, My Endorsement for President of the United States:
I’ll start by reminding readers that my politics don’t align with any of the candidates. ...This past week we saw Clinton pair the idea of President Trump with nuclear disaster, racism, Hitler, the Holocaust, and whatever else makes you tremble in fear.
That is good persuasion if you can pull it off because fear is a strong motivator. ... Her new scare tactics are solid-gold persuasion. ... The only downside I can see to the new approach is that it is likely to trigger a race war in the United States. And I would be a top-ten assassination target in that scenario because once you define Trump as Hitler, you also give citizens moral permission to kill him. And obviously it would be okay to kill anyone who actively supports a genocidal dictator, including anyone who wrote about his persuasion skills in positive terms. (I’m called an “apologist” on Twitter, or sometimes just Joseph Goebbels).
If Clinton successfully pairs Trump with Hitler in your mind – as she is doing – and loses anyway, about a quarter of the country will think it is morally justified to assassinate their own leader. I too would feel that way if an actual Hitler came to power in this country. I would join the resistance and try to take out the Hitler-like leader. You should do the same. No one wants an actual President Hitler..... Trump supporters don’t have any bad feelings about patriotic Americans such as myself, so I’ll be safe from that crowd. But Clinton supporters have convinced me – and here I am being 100% serious – that my safety is at risk if I am seen as supportive of Trump. ... As I have often said, I have no psychic powers and I don’t know which candidate would be the best president. But I do know which outcome is most likely to get me killed by my fellow citizens. ...My prediction remains that Trump will win in a landslide based on his superior persuasion skills. But don’t blame me for anything President Trump does in office because I endorse Clinton.
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GreenPartyVoter
(72,382 posts)access to far worse weaponry than Hitler did.)
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)For people who make a living in politics that's deadly, but using nukes? I don't think that's going to happen despite what John Yoo thinks about the undeniable power of a vice presidential led cabal of power behind the American presidency.
Trump is channeling his experience as a huckster and America's fascination with wild-cat politicians like Huey Long.
Marketers sell sizzle, not steak. It's all words, the best words, beautiful words, or for that matter sound effects. The sizzle isn't a steak on a grill, it's the amplified sound of water splashed on an old hot plate by Foley men.
And in this Trump is actually providing Americans a tremendous service. He's exposing how vulnerable we are to the empty promises of political marketeers. It's all so much 'nothing burger'. When the water evaporates, it's time to move on to the next splash. And it seems many Americans are attracted to the sound of that sizzle.
He has tremendous support. But he's not selling nuclear war. He's not even really selling walls and travel bans. He's selling the sound of cracking, evaporating water on a hot surface.
And this isn't new so much as it is just way over-the-top. The American electoral system is built on lying by politicians marketing sound-effect sizzling of things we want, but they have no intention of even trying to deliver.
Remember this one?? 'I'll walk on that picket line' if bargaining rights threatened'. Yes. Obama, the campaign of Hope, and Si Puede, it was all an empty promise about shoes he never intended to put on but those words sizzled on the hot dreams in our hearts.
It's the game of politics that Trump is spoiling. He's all lies all the time. Yes his appeal of Making America Great Again is similar in tone to Hitler's, there is even some reason to believe he's actually read and modeled his campaign rhetoric around a collection of Hitler's published speeches. But Trump isn't really going to try to make trains run on time, or push out for national "Living Room" in the manner of Dick Cheney modeled Hitlers invasion of the oil fields of eastern europe, or even threaten China for building artificial islands in the China Sea. None of that interests Trump
Trump wants Americans to spend money on dreams, on the hopes of enjoying a Trump luxury suite after hitting it big in a Trump casino. His interest is primarily his domestic need to put cash behind the debit and credit cards Americans use to send money his way.
Politicians selling empty promises so that politicians can get rich off their influence in building casinos and constructing rules that favor the house isn't new at all. Trump is just over the top brazen about showing how all politics has become almost all sham, and that he's perfectly willing to openly use marketing sizzle to further his personal riches as other politicians try to be dodgey about it.
Trump is threatening the political game not the world.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)fit into this otherwise well though out rationale? He is neither competent nor rational when reacting emotionally. Psychologists say that emotionally people like him arrested somewhere in childhood.
I would expect that there would be unusually high changeover in top-level staff but that while people are in power around him they would have inordinate say in policy. Frankly, it's hard to imagine how it could be otherwise. Whatever the motivation for feeding decisions to him, Trump is astonishingly, childishly ignorant of what the president does and cannot do, what Congress and the Supreme Court do, much less what the rest of the world is doing and why and how. His ability to perform in front of cameras will be completely worthless most of the time.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)That particular appeal to paint Trump with stigmatizing associations of a dispised chronic mental condition is empty bigotry without such credible evidence.
Without evidence that Trump is -REALLY- plagued with a mental illness, arm-chair diagnosing is just a bad chatroom behavior that's accepted because America's on-line liberals broadly support using mental illness and mental disorders as adjectival political weapons.
One thing to consider about assertions of mental illness is that mental illness is recognized as pathology because it causes dysfunction. Trump's dysfunction looks remarkably similar to "success" by many measures, he's tremendously prone to creating bad investment schemes, but far from destroying him, those have powered his fame and given him the appearance of being wealthy.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)spoken out out of duty. If you'd spent 10 minutes on this, you'd know that personality disorders are not considered "illnesses." They can't be cured, and are extremely hard to treat effectively enough to make a long-term difference in function.
You might go do your homework, and don't call others bigoted out of your own ignorance. I was not rude to you, but merely attempting to discuss. Btw, your view that Trump's signs of success are merely being mistaken for dysfunction is interesting, to say the least.
If Trump has ever participated in a formal diagnosis, that professional presumably has not been given permission to discuss it. But his disorder is extremely obvious to professionals, including my sister, a psychologist who specializes in a very different branch of the field.
Should mental disorders and dysfunctions in a presidential candidate not be discussed? Is it unseemly, like at a social event?
We didn't discuss Romney's well known (among some coreligionists and voters who did their homework) belief that Armageddon is due any day and that his god would be appointing someone from his church to preside from the White House over that interesting conflict. That seemingly was regarded by the press as inappropriate for conversation. His personal business. I'm guessing you may have felt that way.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)There really is nothing credible on line about this.
There are plenty of people putting up suppositions. and those by and large get accepted because they fit into the narrative.
A mental disorders might be something to discuss with respect to a president, but maybe not. About 60 million americans are estimated to have mental disorders so based on simple probabilities there is about a 1 in 5 chance that a random candidate has one.
But it shouldn't be done because we are looking for something demeaning, basically bigoted, to say about someone without proper evidence.
yourpaljoey
(2,166 posts)
Andy823
(11,495 posts)Bullshit! You sound like one of those over on JPR who says Trump wouldn't be that bad, better than Clinton, and that's just plain crazy. Trump is a threat to everything we have gained since Obama took office, and we can afford to be set back years on what has accomplished. Trump is a con man, I agree, but he also is a person who only cares about himself, and that's dangerous in so many ways.
You can rationalize it all you want, Trump should never be president, no matter what, and in Bernie's own words, Hillary would be a hundred times better than Trump.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)
10 more days of this toxic crap.
Vote2016
(1,198 posts)the tone of Hillary's supporters.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)are being unfair to poor Trump and his sweet, lovely supporters.
10 more days. Happy trails.
Oh, and fuck Donald Trump and every lowlife asshole who supports him.
PeaceNikki
(27,985 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]
PeaceNikki
(27,985 posts)
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)
qdouble
(891 posts)Calling Hillary and other democrats every name in the book is fine, but how dare she criticize Trump for all the insane shit he said on tape!
Trump fans are coming out the closet en masse I see.
Vote2016
(1,198 posts)qdouble
(891 posts)because it might lead to his assassination if he wins? I'm having trouble trying to decipher incoherent horse shit.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)That calling out racism is "race baiting" and will lead to a race war, so people of color and progressives should sit down and shut up about it.
It's horrible bullshit and I don't know why anyone would start an OP with that message here.
Skinner
(63,645 posts)But Hillary is bad for calling him on it? That is some first-class bullshit right there.
PeaceNikki
(27,985 posts)I throw up in my mouth a little any time I see his cartoons posted here, but his political screeds should only be posted here to scorn. He's a terrible person.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)qdouble
(891 posts)People don't even care what the actual message of their post is anymore, as long as it's against Hillary, it flies.
surrealAmerican
(11,365 posts)... but, "could this backfire?"
Of course Trump started it. The means by which Clinton responds matter anyway.
Edited to add: This does not mean I agree with what Adams wrote.
BootinUp
(47,207 posts)and he is just trying to reach the same height of absurdity. I think he succeeded.
Orsino
(37,428 posts)It's quite correct to identify Trump's persona with the lazy, fearful thinking that enabled Hitler's rise to power. Calling it out is neither fearmongering nor advocating assassination.
Adams isn't very smart.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)Good choice, buuuuuhhhdy. #brotastic
gollygee
(22,336 posts)Are we being too hard on Trump?
Do you think calling out his racism is "starting a race war?"
Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)Trump did a pretty easy thing in appealing to the bigotry of the GOP base. Appealing to the general electorate after being a complete bigot, is a completely different matter.
Dilbert is a funny cartoon at times, but this guy's political views should be taken with a grain of salt.
MinnesotaRob
(53 posts)I don't know that I necessarily believe it myself, but this has been maybe the most unpredictable election ever, and consistently so. I don't know why that would suddenly change now.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)
wendylaroux
(2,925 posts)oh the irony of this picture!!
Jester Messiah
(4,711 posts)We must demonize, demonize, demonize! Every hour of every day, lest the rubes start to think they might actually have a choice!
gollygee
(22,336 posts)Over race and religion.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)is duly noted.
10 more days. Happy Trails.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)It's almost as if you intend to present the same false caricature of Clinton supporters that the odious Adams does in his column. Vee komm for YOU in 10 days, vait and see - ha ha ha!
Are you sure you think that what you're doing actually supports the cause you say you are for?
qdouble
(891 posts)Must. not. bash. Trump.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)I too pretend an accurate observation is demonizing-- it allows us to look hip, clever and trendy!
gordianot
(15,249 posts)Trump is a monstrosity comparable to only Trump. Other problems are more subtle such as TPP and other trade deals that do not have a politicians face, and an underlying philosophy. Nah Trump is just an old school monster unique to himself.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,794 posts)..or is he serious? The Trump/Hitler comparisons of late have largely come from people who have noted that early 1930s analysts made many comments to the effect of: Hitler doesn't really embrace this rhetoric he's advancing about violence against the Jews - it's all politics. I just read a snip from an old NYT piece saying essentially that.
My opinion: Trump is a blowhard. He never wrote a Mein Kampf outlining a philosophy to which he adheres. He's grabbing onto items he knows play well with the crowd he needs to elect him. However, if he is President with a Republican Senate and a Republican House, and Tea Party types start passing legislation along the lines of what he proposes, I also doubt he'll have the moral courage to veto those bills.
gordianot
(15,249 posts)Hitler borrowed from Mussolini who in turn lost control to a more virulent form of military industrial fascism. You are correct about Republican nativist, who in turn are a recent development and borrow from American nativist tradition of "Know Nothing Party". There is some evidence Trump is aware of Hitler. I doubt most Republicans are aware how close the old evolved Southern Strategy resembles European Fascism of the mid twentieth century.
Labeling a Federal Judge as "Mexican" is truly outrageous. Trump is dangerous for at a minimum unintended consequences. It is dangerous to under estimate Trump appeal who is convinced he is going to bevthe arbitrator of trade deals.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)I figure about 1 in 50 men fit the bill, and many of them are petty tyrants tormenting their employees.
Luckily not usually in charge of a nation on the brink of insanity. Remember, it was Germany (and its European collaborators) that carried out the war and the genocides, Germany that provided a fertile field without which Hitler would never take power. Nor would we be talking the absurdity that Hitler was some kind of super-genius. He was a sick motherfucker who knew how to play the rubes, like a lot of sick motherfuckers. Like Trump, even.
When you make Hitler into an alien of sorts, you miss the historical point. It's societies that go wrong, not evil men who magically take them over.
gordianot
(15,249 posts)Mein Kampf was mostly a collection of German tabloid rants popular in his day akin to Tea Party nativist. Here is where his monstrosity comes in referencing "who remembers the murder of the Armenians" in the document justifying his invasion of Poland. Guess that is still a sticking point in 2016 calling it Genocide in a Democratic Administration 100 years later in the USA. Just this week Germany took the step of labeling that "Genocide". There are monsters they come from us.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)It may as well have been cribbed from a series of 1922-24 editorials published under Henry Ford's name in his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, and then put out worldwide in two dozen languages at his expense in a volume titled The International Jew. This is cited as an inspiration to Hitler, who hardly needed it but was known for looking up to Ford, who later got a medal from the Nazi regime, their highest honor to foreigners (bestowed by the German consul in Detroit, 1938). The Nazis put Ford's book out in 43 editions by 1942 or so. Both authors were probably cribbing from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, itself a Czarist condensation of centuries of European anti-Semitic beliefs.
But that's not all, it would overemphasize the atavistic side. For highly modern Germany, meanwhile, was a hotbed for both, Taylorism-Fordism as an ideology of getting labor to work properly, and for the "scientific racism" and eugenics that predominated in the Anglo-American elite opinion of the early 20th C. And large parts of Europe broke out into fascisms long before the Nazis came to power. To pretend that what followed with Germany after 1932/33 was all because of Hitler and his coterie, or that no one else can ever be a Hitler (when it's sadly a common personality type whether we call it a syndrome or not) is ahistorical and again, misses the point: Fascisms involve whole societies going insane, in a very "rationalist" way. Thanks for reading.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,794 posts)..and a semi-wingnut.
PeaceNikki
(27,985 posts)gordianot
(15,249 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)pro Trump. It's tawdry carnival method shilling. He's bashing Hillary and promoting Trump using tropes that benefit Trump.
He was on Real Time recently and half of DU adored him for 'bashing Trump' but that's not what he was doing. He was helping shill for Trump using the negative mode. It's classic barker trickery.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)