Consider this: Many Americans want anti-democracy

Maybe we've been barking up the wrong tree. We're trying to convince the die-hard DJT supports that he is not good for the preservation of our institutions and our democracy. We don't understand how they fail to see it. We assume that we all have the same vision of the USA as a democratic republic committed to equal rights, balance of powers, justice, and fairness.

But maybe there's a critical mass of Americans who WANT some degree of authoritarianism, who WANT total and complete allegiance to the POTUS, who WANT dissent to be quashed. For them, DJT is their guy. We can't convince him that he is bad for America because he is in fact perfect for their vision of an authoritarian America.

of course. Exit polls in '16 Indicated that a plurality of voters said "strong leader" was the trait they wanted in a president.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/exit-polls-what-do-voters-want-230935

who's trying to convince diehard Trump supporters of anything?

I mean, except for the clueless who think we need to be nice to them.

shoshannah said:

Maybe we've been barking up the wrong tree. We're trying to convince the die-hard DJT supports that he is not good for the preservation of our institutions and our democracy. We don't understand how they fail to see it. We assume that we all have the same vision of the USA as a democratic republic committed to equal rights, balance of powers, justice, and fairness.

But maybe there's a critical mass of Americans who WANT some degree of authoritarianism, who WANT total and complete allegiance to the POTUS, who WANT dissent to be quashed. For them, DJT is their guy. We can't convince him that he is bad for America because he is in fact perfect for their vision of an authoritarian America.

drummerboy said:

who's trying to convince diehard Trump supporters of anything?

I mean, except for the clueless who think we need to be nice to them.

shoshannah said:

Maybe we've been barking up the wrong tree. We're trying to convince the die-hard DJT supports that he is not good for the preservation of our institutions and our democracy. We don't understand how they fail to see it. We assume that we all have the same vision of the USA as a democratic republic committed to equal rights, balance of powers, justice, and fairness.

But maybe there's a critical mass of Americans who WANT some degree of authoritarianism, who WANT total and complete allegiance to the POTUS, who WANT dissent to be quashed. For them, DJT is their guy. We can't convince him that he is bad for America because he is in fact perfect for their vision of an authoritarian America.

Many try to point out real data or explain why his style of "leadership" is not consistent with maintaining our democratic institutions. Many do so here on MOL.

I am pasting here something drummerboy posted on another thread. I've read similar accounts from others who have attended DJT rallies. These are the people who want compliance and authoritarianism.

From DB:

anybody defending anything that happens in a Trump rally needs some serious help.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/pastor-walks-out-on-trumps-demonic-florida-rally-my-11-year-old-daughter-was-sobbing-in-fear/#.WKzJ9Zb_2zk.facebook

Joel Tooley, lead pastor at First Church Of The Nazarene in Melbourne,
said that both he and his daughter were traumatized after attending
President Donald Trump’s rally in Florida over the weekend.
In a lengthy Facebook post
written after Trump’s Saturday rally, Tooley explains that he had not
supported the Republican presidential candidate but he felt that
attending a presidential speech would be a good civics lesson for his
daughter.
Tooley writes that he was disturbed by the “almost church-like” way Trump supporters sang Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.
“People were being ushered into a deeply religious experience…and it
made me completely uncomfortable,” the pastor recalls. “I felt like
people were here to worship an ideology along with the man who was
leading it. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the song per se – it was this
inexplicable movement that was happening in the room. It was a religious
zeal.”
Tooley describes First Lady Melania Trump’s reading of the Lord’s Prayer as “theatrical and manipulative.”

“I can’t explain it, but I felt sick,” he notes. “People across the
room were reciting it as if it were a pep squad cheer. At the close of
the prayer, the room erupted in cheering. It was so uncomfortable.”
After the president began speaking, Tooley says that Trump fans squared off against protesters in the crowd.
“Two ladies in front of them began seething and screaming in their
face while shaking their Trump signs at [the protesters],” he writes.
“As they continued chanting, the people around them became violently
enraged. One angry man grabbed the lady’s arm – that’s when I went into
action. I barged through the crowd and yelled at them to back off.”
“My 11-year-old daughter was clinging to my arm, sobbing in fear,”
Tooley reveals. “The two angry, screaming ladies looked at me, both of
them raised their middle finger at me in my face and repeatedly yelled,
‘F*#% YOU!’ Repeatedly.”

I have been in places and experiences before where
demonic activity was palpable. The power of the Holy Spirit of God was
protecting me in those moments and was once again protecting me and my
daughter in this moment.

I raised my voice and calmly said, “These ladies have the right to do
what they are doing and they are harming no one; this is America and
they a right to express themselves in this way. They are harming no
one.” A couple of other people around me stepped in and supported me in
protecting them as a barrier, as well.
My daughter was shaking in fear as she clung to me. The one man
behind the protesters shoved himself forward, grabbed the lady by the
arm and screamed with multiple expletives, “I’m going to take you out!
This is my president and nobody has the right to disrespect him and
nobody has the right to keep me from hearing him!”
Tooley states that he eventually lost track of what Trump was saying because of the ongoing scuffles.
“My kid was shaken – she had just seen some of the worst of
humanity,” the pastor laments in his Facebook post. “But, at the end of
the day, what I felt from his leadership in this experience was actually
horrifying. There was palpable fear in the room. There was thick anger
and vengeance. He was counting on it.”
Read Tooley’s entire post below.

ok. I don't know about a "critical mass", but certainly there's a large percentage of people in the U.S. with authoritarian tendencies - and they are hugely R and/or Conservative.

So, the concentration of those types within the Trump voter base has to be pretty large. If you tested the people who went to a Trump rally, I'd be surprised if less than 90% scored very high on the Authoritarian scale. His rallies are just classic pieces of authoritarianism on parade.

As long as we're talking about , I haven't linked this recently, but this is an excellent piece on the Authoritarian mentality.

Mind you this was written pre-Trump. circa 2006, while we were in the throes of Dubya. I don't know if he's written anything post-Trump.

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

shoshannah said:

drummerboy said:

who's trying to convince diehard Trump supporters of anything?

I mean, except for the clueless who think we need to be nice to them.

shoshannah said:

Maybe we've been barking up the wrong tree. We're trying to convince the die-hard DJT supports that he is not good for the preservation of our institutions and our democracy. We don't understand how they fail to see it. We assume that we all have the same vision of the USA as a democratic republic committed to equal rights, balance of powers, justice, and fairness.

But maybe there's a critical mass of Americans who WANT some degree of authoritarianism, who WANT total and complete allegiance to the POTUS, who WANT dissent to be quashed. For them, DJT is their guy. We can't convince him that he is bad for America because he is in fact perfect for their vision of an authoritarian America.

Many try to point out real data or explain why his style of "leadership" is not consistent with maintaining our democratic institutions. Many do so here on MOL.

I recall when I was in high school in the mid to late 1960's. My parents loved talking about FDR, the Depression and WWII. I remember a conversation they were having in which they said this country was lucky that FDR wasn't a dictator because our country would have likely settled for that. Authoritarianism has always had appeal. Probably especially when people are frightened.

shoshannah, I want to thank you for stepping up your game with political posts here.

I agree that some people don't want democracy. The desire for authoritarianism rises when fear rises. Various institutions and people have been creating and playing up fear, so it's a clever strategy.

Perhaps it would make a little more sense to convince people why democracy is good. But honestly, I think that would be fruitless, too. Fear chokes out rational thinking.

Americans think that "democracy" means just voting. They want democracy so they can elect strong leaders who will use their power to serve the interests they favor. They want "freedom" for themselves but not for "bad people" or those who they see as threats.

A seminal work on the Civil War is called "Battle Cry of Freedom" because both the Union soldiers and the Confederate soldiers felt that they were fighting for freedom.

I've just started rereading The Nazi Seizure of Power by William Sheridan Allen. When I first read it circa 1980, it was just another book. Now, it reads faintly like a horror story.

For defenders of democracy, you sure do whine quite a bit about the outcomes of democratic processes.

except we don't have a democratic process.

How do you not know this?

What do you libertarians talk about anyway?

terp said:

For defenders of democracy, you sure do whine quite a bit about the outcomes of democratic processes.

the Electoral College is anti-democratic by design.

LOST said:

Americans think that "democracy" means just voting. They want democracy so they can elect strong leaders who will use their power to serve the interests they favor. They want "freedom" for themselves but not for "bad people" or those who they see as threats.

A seminal work on the Civil War is called "Battle Cry of Freedom" because both the Union soldiers and the Confederate soldiers felt that they were fighting for freedom.

Yup. Trump supporters LOVE the Republic. Love power. They don't at all hate democracy. They just hate the liberal version of democracy. Once again, we're veering off into the woods.

ml1 said:

the Electoral College is anti-democratic by design.

Pretty much. But the Founding Fathers were behind it. So there's that.

terp said:

For defenders of democracy, you sure do whine quite a bit about the outcomes of democratic processes.

Except for one inconvenient fact: It was influenced by a propaganda campaign from a foreign power.

tjohn said:

I've just started rereading The Nazi Seizure of Power by William Sheridan Allen. When I first read it circa 1980, it was just another book. Now, it reads faintly like a horror story.

This is worth a read, too.

WHEN IT’S TOO LATE TO STOP FASCISM, ACCORDING TO STEFAN ZWEIG

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/when-its-too-late-to-stop-fascism-according-to-stefan-zweig?mbid=social_facebook_aud_dev_kw_febsub-when-its-too-late-to-stop-fascism-according-to-stefan-zweig&kwp_0=339791&kwp_4=1277658&kwp_1=569016

it wasn't anti-democratic so much as pro-slavery.

So there's that.

ctrzaska said:

ml1 said:

the Electoral College is anti-democratic by design.

Pretty much. But the Founding Fathers were behind it. So there's that.

shoshannah said:

I am pasting here something drummerboy posted on another thread. I've read similar accounts from others who have attended DJT rallies. These are the people who want compliance and authoritarianism.

From DB:

anybody defending anything that happens in a Trump rally needs some serious help.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/pastor-walks-out-on-trumps-demonic-florida-rally-my-11-year-old-daughter-was-sobbing-in-fear/#.WKzJ9Zb_2zk.facebook

Joel Tooley, lead pastor at First Church Of The Nazarene in Melbourne,
said that both he and his daughter were traumatized after attending
President Donald Trump’s rally in Florida over the weekend.
In a lengthy Facebook post
written after Trump’s Saturday rally, Tooley explains that he had not
supported the Republican presidential candidate but he felt that
attending a presidential speech would be a good civics lesson for his
daughter.
Tooley writes that he was disturbed by the “almost church-like” way Trump supporters sang Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.
“People were being ushered into a deeply religious experience…and it
made me completely uncomfortable,” the pastor recalls. “I felt like
people were here to worship an ideology along with the man who was
leading it. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the song per se – it was this
inexplicable movement that was happening in the room. It was a religious
zeal.”
Tooley describes First Lady Melania Trump’s reading of the Lord’s Prayer as “theatrical and manipulative.”

“I can’t explain it, but I felt sick,” he notes. “People across the
room were reciting it as if it were a pep squad cheer. At the close of
the prayer, the room erupted in cheering. It was so uncomfortable.”
After the president began speaking, Tooley says that Trump fans squared off against protesters in the crowd.
“Two ladies in front of them began seething and screaming in their
face while shaking their Trump signs at [the protesters],” he writes.
“As they continued chanting, the people around them became violently
enraged. One angry man grabbed the lady’s arm – that’s when I went into
action. I barged through the crowd and yelled at them to back off.”
“My 11-year-old daughter was clinging to my arm, sobbing in fear,”
Tooley reveals. “The two angry, screaming ladies looked at me, both of
them raised their middle finger at me in my face and repeatedly yelled,
‘F*#% YOU!’ Repeatedly.”

I have been in places and experiences before where
demonic activity was palpable. The power of the Holy Spirit of God was
protecting me in those moments and was once again protecting me and my
daughter in this moment.

I raised my voice and calmly said, “These ladies have the right to do
what they are doing and they are harming no one; this is America and
they a right to express themselves in this way. They are harming no
one.” A couple of other people around me stepped in and supported me in
protecting them as a barrier, as well.
My daughter was shaking in fear as she clung to me. The one man
behind the protesters shoved himself forward, grabbed the lady by the
arm and screamed with multiple expletives, “I’m going to take you out!
This is my president and nobody has the right to disrespect him and
nobody has the right to keep me from hearing him!”
Tooley states that he eventually lost track of what Trump was saying because of the ongoing scuffles.
“My kid was shaken – she had just seen some of the worst of
humanity,” the pastor laments in his Facebook post. “But, at the end of
the day, what I felt from his leadership in this experience was actually
horrifying. There was palpable fear in the room. There was thick anger
and vengeance. He was counting on it.”
Read Tooley’s entire post below.

Yawn

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp-ot_vChlU

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TW9b0xr06qA

People voting against Democrats at every level of government is undemocratic. Awesome.

You know Jackson, the problem people have with Trump is not that he won - it is that very large numbers of Americans seem to hang on every word come out of the mouth of a man who either doesn't understand or despises the U.S. Constitution. I was fine with Reagan. Not wild about Bush 1. Not wild about Bush 2 but didn't strongly dislike him until he ordered the invasion of Iraq. But Trump, I have found disturbing from the beginning. I can clearly remember seeing him speaking on T.V. in 2015 with no sound and thinking that his animation reminded me very much of Hitler's animation while speaking. And I cannot think of any other presidents in my lifetime who ever invoked the Führerprinzip the way Trump does.

tjohn said:

You know Jackson, the problem people have with Trump is not that he won - it is that very large numbers of Americans seem to hang on every word come out of the mouth of a man who either doesn't understand or despises the U.S. Constitution. I was fine with Reagan. Not wild about Bush 1. Not wild about Bush 2 but didn't strongly dislike him until he ordered the invasion of Iraq. But Trump, I have found disturbing from the beginning. I can clearly remember seeing him speaking on T.V. in 2015 with no sound and thinking that his animation reminded me very much of Hitler's animation while speaking. And I cannot think of any other presidents in my lifetime who ever invoked the Führerprinzip the way Trump does.

Well, I recognize that the perception by those who dislike trump is that his supporters slavishly and mindlessly follow his every edict, with no ability to think for themselves, awash in a sea of xenophobia racism nationalism and hate. And more importantly, his supporters know what the perception is.

The only way to be accepted by the intolerant left is to parrot the intolerant left. And accept it root and branch. Doubt me? Look at the purity tests being performed at the DNC.

People figured it out, and they stopped caring what the 5% hardcore and loud radical fringe wants.

I'll start worrying about Trump when government employees, such as teachers, start organizing children to put on Dear Leader's iconography and sing songs of praise to his leadership.

I call these people Democrats

tjohn said:

You know Jackson, the problem people have with Trump is not that he won - it is that very large numbers of Americans seem to hang on every word come out of the mouth of a man who either doesn't understand or despises the U.S. Constitution.

terp said:

I call these people Democrats

tjohn said:

You know Jackson, the problem people have with Trump is not that he won - it is that very large numbers of Americans seem to hang on every word come out of the mouth of a man who either doesn't understand or despises the U.S. Constitution.

Sir you won Maplewood Online today and it's only 8:06.

try taking a look at polls of the Trump supporters and see the degree to which they diverge from reality.

You guys s-o-o-o-o-o don't get it.