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Not how I am reading what they say. I've never considered any political supporters to be cultish. Not Obama's supporters, not Dubya's, not Clinton's.
A good portion of Trump supporters I would call cultish. Like Trump said, he could shoot someone on 5th Ave, and they would still support him. THAT is cultish.
Do I think ALL Trump supporters are cultish? No. But a lot are.
Oh, there are cultish supporters of any politician. Howard Stern did a series of interviews on the street with Obama supporters where he exposed how ignorant they were. He said things like "Do you like Obama because he's pro-life?" (Republican position) and people would say "Oh yeah.....". "Do you think Obama will kill Osama bin Laden?" (after he was already dead), etc.
That's just exposing stupidity. There is no shortage of that on all sides. Interviewing rally attendees "You need to cancel Obama care!!!!!! The ACA I have is good enough!"
I didn't consider that cultish, just run-of-the-mill dumb.
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One has to open their eyes to the full nature of a problem in order to make things better. If things are going off the rails, it's not cynical to say it.
I've come to the conclusion that voting isn't that important any more. The political system got gamed a long time ago. The political system isn't the highest level of power (that should be obvious). But neither are the corporations. IMO, there's at least one or two levels of power above the corporations. There are a few very rich people out there who never make it onto any "global rich list" from mainstream media sources. But saying that makes me a kook to some.
As far as what to do? Well, I think making plans to leave urban areas and to try to be as self sufficient as possible (i.e. get off the money system) is the way to go. I'm not doing that myself yet, but I have plans.
I would add the importance of being spiritually prepared. (meditation, prayer, read the Bible, etc.). Ultimately, none of us are leaving this world alive. Might as well leave a good person. Even if one survives a calamity, none of us will live forever.
Good post. I have said for a long time now the president is just a figurehead with little power. The two-party system is about dividing and keeping the real power players hidden behind the curtain. People get so wrapped up in R vs. D, but in the end you get the same results. Different rhetoric but the same results. Trump is a perfect example. Record national debt, $1 trillion+ deficit in "boom" times, crying for negative rates and more Fed intervention. Complete 180 from this rhetoric in 2016 and what he claimed was all propping up Obama to look good. All the same. Just this past Friday Trump said who the hell cares about the budget lol.
The power structure is never going to let someone in office who will truly shake things up and ruffle feathers. Central banks are in control and their strategy is to expand their balance sheets and add more record levels of debt. Debt is their tool for control. As for the president......... Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss......
Why would they stop spending? it's how we pay for our own votes. Repeat after me: "Balanced Budget Amendment"
rinse-lather-repeat
I agree but that balance budget can't come by means of excessive taxation. It literally has to be done by weaning the American public off the gov't teet.
Not how I am reading what they say. I've never considered any political supporters to be cultish. Not Obama's supporters, not Dubya's, not Clinton's.
A good portion of Trump supporters I would call cultish. Like Trump said, he could shoot someone on 5th Ave, and they would still support him. THAT is cultish.
Do I think ALL Trump supporters are cultish? No. But a lot are.
The problem is too many people are getting caught up in branding/labels/titles/identity. Dem vs Repub, Liberal vs Conservative, Left vs. Right, Trump vs. whomever.... In reality the President is a figurehead or the extension of government as 1 face... While in reality both parties on a National, State, County, City, and Municipal level have their fingers in the pie at all levels.
Regardless if it's Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, or Trump we have continue to push federal spending (outlays) growth an an exponential rate while revenue (receipts) are growing linearly. The war machine and entitlement handouts is out of control. Both are to blame we all are to blame.
Let's take a quick look at "the greatest economy ever" and some things going on behind the curtain and this is in "boom" times lol.
Record balance sheet expansion by the Fed over the past 3 months. $100s of billions being pumped into the repo markets by the Fed to prop them up. $60 billion in month treasury purchases. Just yesterday, the Fed bought $825 million of mortgage bonds, sold none. Trump wants negative rates. $1 trillion+ deficit. $23 trillion national debt.
Check out this article quoting Trump in 2016 linked here.
From the article:
Trump in 2016 - Trump said rates are being kept lower to bolster Obama’s legacy. “Any increase at all will be a very, very small increase because they want to keep the market up so Obama goes out and let the new guy ... raise interest rates ... and watch what happens in the stock market.”
Doubting whether rates would change while Obama remains in office, Trump said: ”[Obama] wants to go out. He wants to play golf for the rest of this life. And he doesn’t care what’s going to happen after January.”
American savers are the worst hit by the Fed’s easy monetary policies, Trump said. “The ones who did it right — they saved their money [and] they cut down on their mortgages, ... and now they’re practically getting zero interest on the money.”
As a real estate businessman, Trump said: “I love low interest rates,” but for the good of the nation, rates should be higher.
LOL we seem to have had a "180."
Yawn. The Fed is going to buy $600 billion of the $1.2 trillion deficit this year. Tax and Spend has switched to Print and Spend. Eventually that will push the dollar to collapse, but not in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the economy is cooking, the rich are getting stinking rich, and poor people can get a job and be independently poor. The stock market is sky high because of all the free money the Fed is handing out.
Fiscal conservatism is something that makes for good politics when your party is out of power. You can complain about how the party in power is giving money to... whatever group you don't like: defense contractors and rich bankers if you're a Democrat, lazy welfare cheats and corrupt unions if you're a Republican, whatever.
But when your party is in power, it's a different story. When you're in power and you change something, it's reality, it's not just rhetoric. It's especially problematic when you try to take something away. No one like getting less of something. We saw that play out in the 2017 push to repeal Obamacare. Republicans complained about Obamacare to high heaven for 8 years. But when they actually had the power to change it, things got real. Changing it would have meant that some of their constituents would get reduced access to health care. It turned out only about 15-25% of the public actually liked that idea (the ideologues, essentially). Even a lot of Republicans got upset.
Nicolo Machiavelli put it best in 1532:
There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order. This lukewarmness arises partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the law in their favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.
I agree but that balance budget can't come by means of excessive taxation. It literally has to be done by weaning the American public off the gov't teet.
Getting more off the public welfare rolls benefits both sides of the equation because it reduces spending and increases taxes collected. We need to continue to try to encourage work over welfare - benefits are high enough and rules are lax enough some places that it discourages working. From CATO Institute report
Quote:
…. despite the work requirements put in place by the Nineties welfare reform, fewer than 42 percent of recipients are participating in broadly defined “work activities.” In some states, such as Missouri and Massachusetts, less than one out of five welfare recipients are “working.” Moreover, work activity frequently means not a job but only looking for work or participating in a job‐training program. In fact, fewer than one‐fifth of welfare recipients are working in unsubsidized private‐sector jobs.
…. what is undeniable is that for many recipients — particularly the “long‐term” dependents — welfare pays substantially more than an entry‐level job does.
Agree that general increased taxation will not resolve the issue, reducing income taxes for middle class will likely boost the economy enough to overcome the minor loss in federal taxes. What needs to be cut is some of the counterproductive tax loopholes.
I expressed my feeling about Trump. You can have yours. Anyone still sticking with Trump is unlikely to abandon him no matter what he does (shooting someone on 5th Avenue, boy he got that right). I am no longer "trying to convince" anyone supporting Trump of anything.
We get it. You don't like Trump. There are many things about Trump that people probably should not like. Trump is not a traditional politician but i think he will be reelected in 2020. The majority of Democrats apparently are thinking that too otherwise why the impeachment madness?
In our democracy, we settle disputes every four years in a new election (instead of attempting to overthrow the last election we lost). It troubles me to see the Democrats more devoted to their own perceptions (subject to distortions and errors) more than they value the process of democracy. Our Founding Fathers gave us a democracy so we could avoid the bloody civil wars that devastated Europe so often, and all other parts of the globe.
My view is that both parties should get the chance to lead; and we should respect the Democrats when they win, and the Republicans when they win. Both parties have positive values and both sides have negative values - a good side and a bad side. Can we believe that one side is good absolutely and another side is bad? If so, then how can we justify a democracy at all - why not either a fascist empire or a communist dictatorship of the working class, since they are mirror images of each other. Democracy is the golden mean between these two forms of death.
You don't like Donald Trump, then win the next election and throw him out. That's what I told Republicans who did not like Obama.
Good Luck!
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