How Low Does He Have to Go?
To any and all Donald Trump voters out there, I have a very serious question: What would Donald Trump have to do to lose your vote?
A while back, Trump said that he could go out and shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any supporters. Well, this seems to be true.
He has shown that lying, being an egomaniac, and making ludicrous, salacious, degrading, and bizarre statements on a daily basis does not lose him support; he has shown that spewing hatred upon various groups—even veterans, like John McCain—does not lose him support; the fact that he went bankrupt six times, has had shady business dealings, and violated any number of business codes does not lose him support; the fact that he refuses to reveal any tax returns, even though he may be in hock to Russian oligarchs, does not lose him support; the fact that he fails to pay employees and contractors until they sue him, even to the point of destroying family businesses he hires, does not lose him support; the fact that he ran businesses like Trump University with transparent fraud does not lose him support; the fact that major figures in his own party call him unqualified or dangerous does not lose him support; the fact that he clearly does not know enough to be president and is not in any way—especially in terms of temperament—qualified to be president does not lose him support.
In 2002, Trump said of Jeffrey Epstein: “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” Epstein is a sex offender and pedophile, having served time for soliciting an underage girl, but evidence was found that he committed statutory rape and probably ran an underage sex ring.
That doesn’t bother you?
The man who ghost-wrote his famous “Art of the Deal” book reveals that Trump has almost no attention span, and is literally a sociopath—and that doesn’t bother you?
And now we have the case of Trump openly and rather vilely insulting a Gold Star family, casting bigoted slurs against them.
And you still support Trump?
This is why I truly, honestly want an answer: What would Trump have to do to lose your support? Exactly how far would he have to go? Would he literally be able to shoot someone on 5th Avenue and still have your support?
It is easy to predict the most likely response to this: a litany of Hillary “scandals.” I’ve gotten that before, in fact. The problem with that retort is, every single “scandal” about Hillary—just as with every “scandal” about Obama—is that there is no “there” there. Republicans have been heaving every piece of mud and filth they can muster at Hillary since the early 1990’s, trying to smear her with every conceivable scandal and rumor—up to and including mass murder (see the truly insane “Clinton Body Count”). Every single charge—EVERY single one of them—is either false, exaggerated, or amounts to nothing. All suggest scandal, but none prove it; all are circumstantial and rife with innuendo. In fact, the fact that Hillary has been assaulted by Republican-led committees and investigated more than virtually any public figure in history and has not been indicted once—instead, she has been repeatedly cleared of wrongdoing—is in itself evidence that she is innocent of these smears.
So, if you’re a Trump supporter and that’s your answer, don’t bother—it’s transparently false.
Again, just like all the bad stuff we KNOW about Trump and all the stuff that is likely true and he is baldly hiding from view, Trump supporters will simply ignore the facts I detail above. Like Newt Gingrich said at the RNC convention, statistics don’t matter, the facts don’t matter, the truth does not matter—all that matters is what people feel is true.
regarding your post from 2004:
http://blogd.com/wp/index.php/archives/769
(Kerry came within 100,000 votes of winning, sigh)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=6oTF
is an extension of the job growth / population growth analysis
blue is new jobs each month, red is new working-age population
takeaway here is that the best the Bush Boom got was treading water.
People rag on the late 70s but it was the strongest job market we’ve seen.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=6oYc
is an important graph explaining the underpinnings, it is % growth in total debt (gov’t, private) as a % of GDP less the CPI % for that year, basically a reading on how much new debt is accelerating the economy.
Through to 1978 you see a range of 5 – 10%, then the Volcker recession choking off new debt, then the Reagan recovery adding a helluva lot, then the 1990s normalization, then the system throwing the kitchen sink at the economy again in 2004.
That’s the gas pedal, but the speed we’re going (wrt debt leverage) is total debt / GDP:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=6p0j
Here you can see the two transitions, Reagan, and GWB.
(AFAICT the higher the debt leverage gets, the further down interest rates get pushed — that’s the Japan case at least, dunno what’s going to happen here this decade and next)
“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” Mr. Trump said, as the crowd began to boo. He quickly added: “Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”
well, there’s a new low. Then again we’ve still got 3 months of this shit.
In case the worst happens in November . . .
https://i.imgur.com/pwm66lZ.png