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Some of my best friends are Trump supporters

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A PREFACE FOR THE PEOPLE'S CUBE [ FULL PROG OFF ]

I originally wrote this article for the American Thinker (03/28/16). I wasn't going to post it here, hoping to spare this site from the same temporary insanity that has split the rest of America into those who support Trump and those who hate him and his supporters (as evident from the 633 comments on AT). But then a couple of weeks later I was contacted by Australia's major news site, News.com.au, with a request to republish the piece. It was published on 4/16/16, richly illustrated with archive photos and videos - and once again, attracted many comments, ranging from "the best article I've seen on news.com.au in years" to "you suck." Apparently, this is an international phenomenon.

My Italian friend tells me their media is mostly anti-Trump. That made me wonder about how far this phenomenon goes. So I'm going to ask all our international readers and contributors to tell us if they know people in their own countries who support/oppose Trump's candidacy and would like/hate to see a similar leader emerge there as well. If so, what are their arguments? Could you summarize the pro-Trump / anti-Trump split in your country (or other countries you know), and post it below in the comments?

If for whatever reason you can't post it here yourself, email me your thoughts to [email protected] - and I'll post them for you (let me know if you'd rather use your real name or a nickname).

Thus, instead of avoiding insanity on this site I'm going to take a risk and take it to an international level. Oh well. The good news is, this insanity is temporary and should mostly abate, at least on the right-hand side, either around the time of the GOP Convention (July 18-21), or the general election (November 8). On the general historical timeline this distance amounts to a millisecond, and I wish more people would treat it this way.

Perhaps, with your help, this article may well have an international sequel.

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Some of my best friends are Trump supporters

By Oleg Atbashian

Trump supporters are, perhaps, the only group of voters in this nation's history who have been so viciously and consistently maligned, and in such a coordinated manner, by both political parties. At the same time, not much is known about them, despite the recent spate of articles attempting to explain the phenomenon. The problem with that is that the authors admittedly don't know any of the Trump supporters themselves. Well, I happen to know quite a few of them personally.

Full disclosure: first, I can't vote because I'm not a U.S. citizen yet, despite my best and decades-long efforts -- but let's leave the immigration system's misplaced priorities for another day.

Second, I like to form my opinions about the candidates and their supporters independently, without taking advice from media pundits or Facebook messages from pro-Cruz acquaintances.

Third, I like both Cruz and Trump. I'm not as passionate about them as some; I'm merely pragmatic: I like anyone who can stop America's descent into socialism or, better yet, reverse the course entirely. I also realize that America has come to a point when having big ideas is no longer enough; in order to shake up the system and get the economy moving the next president must also be a bigger-than-life mover and shaker.

Since I'm not allowed to vote, I remain simply an objective observer of American politics, judging the process from the perspective of a former Soviet citizen, who during the times of the glorious Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was forced to cast single-name ballots for candidates I didn't know nor cared about. A total 100% voter turnout in practice meant total apathy: most people dropped paper ballots into the boxes without reading them. The occasional rare signs of passion were the ballots with crossed-out names and large capital letters saying, BLOODSUCKERS ALL; those were extracted by the KGB for handwriting analysis. Voting had become a periodic ritual of obedience and surrender before the powerful state and a reminder that we were all equal slaves in the eyes of our masters.

That memory makes American elections even more interesting. First it's the primaries, where candidates from each political party position themselves in a circular firing squad, trying to assassinate each other's character and reputation. Once only a few of them remain standing, their supporters start fighting and demonizing each other on social media to the point where to an objective observer every candidate looks like the most corrupt and immoral scoundrel and the worst human being who ever lived. Finally, the two surviving candidates from each party, badly wounded and bloodied, begin to punch each other in the wounds during the general election, as their supporters continue to fight and demonize each other on social media. The one who still stands by November is then declared Leader of the Free World.

At least that's how most foreigners see it, especially if they are unfamiliar with the differences between the two parties and get their facts from the mainstream media which always promotes one party and pretends to be fair to the other. Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others, said Winston S. Churchill, and he had his own political wounds to prove it.

This year's election especially fits the above caricature. The strongest fire from all media portholes and loopholes is directed at the Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump, and his supporters. They are being described as uneducated, angry, vengeful, racist, xenophobic, and plain stupid. Authors of these assumptions, mostly writing from within the Boston-New York-Washington corridor, admit that they don't even know anyone who likes Trump. But how can they write about what they don't know? When the electoral map is fluid, when things are happening rapidly in real time, and when no reliable historical data exists, we rely on personal experiences and anecdotal evidence. In the absence of such, the writers simply fill the gaps in their knowledge with their own prejudices, similar to how medieval mapmakers marked unexplored areas with "here be dragons."

There's a big probability that Trump supporters are, in fact, all around them, even in their own families -- and the reason why these writers don't know it, is their own snobbery. No one likes to be called stupid, his IQ questioned, or presumed to be an unthinking herd animal, and many simply don't have the time to stop and explain their reasons whenever a #NeverTrump activist feels like trashing Trump voters. Many simply choose to remain silent.

This study explains why many polls underestimated Trump's support: Trump has consistently polled better on anonymous online polls than on phone surveys because some of his supporters were unwilling to identify themselves publicly. In other words, public shaming didn't unwean Trump from his supporters but caused them to go underground.

Doesn't this also describe how the majority of Americans have felt in recent decades, being constantly shamed into silence by the "progressive" media, education, and the cultural establishment? I know this too well, having worked in New York's "progressive" corporate environment. My co-workers would ask me about life in the USSR and I would tell them exactly what I thought about socialism and political correctness until I realized that most of them didn't like my answers and I was only hurting myself by speaking my mind. Some gave me frightened looks, others stopped talking with me. I might as well have told them that life in the USSR was similar to life in New York, where people had to learn to keep their mouths shut and to look over their shoulders before saying anything remotely political. So much for emigrating into a free country. It felt like history was about to repeat itself. Until now.

Consider this story: there lived an apathetic silent majority, maligned and shamed by its leaders and the official media, and they thought it would never end. But one day a miracle happened: they suddenly heard a voice that articulated their own forbidden thoughts -- something they had been afraid to articulate in public, even though it was common sense -- words not dressed in flowery rhetoric and rounded sentences, but delivered roughly, in a regional accent of the common man -- plain and truthful words coming from the highest pulpit in the nation. Millions of people recognized their own voices in his, lending him their support -- silently at first, but more and more vocal as time went by -- to a point that they went out into the streets to defend him in the face of violent and dangerous opposition from the far Left.

I am talking, of course, about Mikhail Gorbachev and the reaction he first received from the Soviets when he started his Perestroika and Glasnost in the USSR. I remember it clearly because I was one of them. Gorbachev wasn't perfect by any measure, and yet he started a process that shook up the corrupt establishment, ended the rule of the powerful Communist Party, liberalized the economy, and opened the country to an honest debate about its problems. The parallels with Donald Trump, his message, and his appeal with America's silent majority are unmistakable.

That the Soviet Union's problems turned out to be irreconcilable wasn't Gorby's fault; the country had already been damaged beyond repair by seven decades of ruthless socialist experimentation. America hasn't yet gone that far, but the wild popularity of socialist Bernie Sanders with the "screaming minority" of young voters may be an indication that this election may be America's last exit before the road ends off a cliff.

Giving voice to the silent majority is one of the factors why Trump leads in the race. Some other factors will become clear if we look at some of his individual supporters. I know who they are because they aren't afraid to open up to me. They know that unlike the above established essayists, I won't be calling them names or trying to shame the silent majority back into silence. For the same reason I'm not using their real names.

Jack

Jack is an accomplished classical musician, a fine wordsmith, a long-time conservative, and a devout Christian. When a broken shoulder made him unable to hold the instrument, he used his sharp, perceptive mind and his degree in economy to make himself a fortune in the financial markets. Now he can afford to relax and write novels.

Jack gave me his take on the demonization of Trump and the stereotyping of his supporters as poorly educated, low-information rubes. According to Jack, both the Republican and the Democrat establishments are corrupt and dysfunctional, but the one thing they can do well is manufacture media narratives that infect people's minds with notions that are beneficial to the respective branch of political aristocracy, while causing aversion to anything that endangers it.

Trump is a clear and present danger to this corrupt and elitist system. He is willing and fully able to blow to smithereens all their carefully established social hierarchies and to change the entire political culture, which will make the elites unnecessary and expose the uselessness of their cherished and very expensive apparatus. The GOP establishment's fear and loathing of Trump is so intense that even losing the election to Hillary seems to many of them a lesser evil.

The same establishment remained ineffective throughout the Obama presidency. Obama didn't threaten their careers and each one of his disastrous policies was to them a lucrative fundraising opportunity. In contrast, Trump threatens their very survival -- and suddenly the establishment's speed and effectiveness is phenomenal. Their quickly constructed #NeverTrump narrative is targeting conservative "purists" and die-hard Ted Cruz supporters, infecting them with hostility that reaches and surpasses the ill-famed Bush Derangement Syndrome.

The sad irony of the #NeverTrump movement is that these self-proclaimed "true conservatives" and "anti-establishment rebels" have swallowed the establishment's narrative hook, line, and sinker. Worse yet, they now indiscriminately share social media links from previously despised leftist sources, as long as they attack Trump. So much for their stereotyping of Trump supporters as gullible, angry jerks.

Jack isn't a Cruz-hater. In fact, he would just as much like to see Ted Cruz become president, if he can win in the general election -- which is unlikely. Like most Trump supporters I know, Jack doesn't treat other candidates with the same hostility. There's no organized #NeverCruz movement to speak of, and no one except Cruz supporters are creating blacklists targeting the other side. Jack is sad to see that so many good, previously sane people have succumbed to the #NeverTrump lunacy.

Mike


My other friend, Mike, who is a conservative writer, approaches this from a different angle. He likes Ted Cruz because Cruz has all the right answers, but that's not enough. Mike compares Cruz to a professor who can recite the chemistry textbook by heart. Trump, on the other hand, is a wild man who wants to use the formulas in that same textbook to blow away our enemies. At this point in history we don't need a professor, we need the wild man.

Brendan


Brendan is an immigrant from Ireland, who says that when he came to the U.S., he expected to see an American leader to be more like John Wayne -- a decisive and confident guy with swagger -- and not like Pee Wee Herman or a European-style spineless socialist.

Brendan has spent years working on New York construction projects, including some that involved Donald Trump. He witnessed Trump getting personally involved with contractors and workers without any mediators, not afraid to get dirty and drive a hard bargain. Trump has never lost his lower-class accent he picked up growing up in Queens, and he was never accepted by the snooty New York elites as their own. But he has always been liked and accepted by the working classes as a "people's billionaire."

He doesn't see anger among Trump's supporters, but rather optimism and love for the country. He also scoffs at those who compare Trump to Mussolini or Hitler. Trump has been in the public eye for almost 70 years, running a large business, producing a TV show, and nobody ever complained about him acting like a despot. Don't you think that if Trump had the slightest trace of a dictator in him, someone would have brought it up and the media would have trumpeted it all over the world?

Brendan also likes Ted Cruz and shares many of his ideas. But even if Cruz is president, says Brendan, he'll be lucky if he's able to implement at least 10% of those ideas in practice. Trump, with his ability to overcome obstacles, will probably get at least 70% done. Brendan may not share 100% of Trump's ideas, but he would rather see 50% of them implemented by Trump than 10% by Cruz, or 0% by Bernie or Hillary.

Ann

Ann has recently parted with feminism and quit the NOW over what she describes as the betrayal of women's rights by feminist leadership. The politically correct, leftist feminist establishment has done nothing to oppose the oppression of women in Sharia-dominated societies, and continues to oppose any attempt to prevent the spreading of the patriarchal and misogynistic Sharia values through Muslim immigration in America. In Ann's words, by supporting pro-Sharia multiculturalism, NOW effectively sided with male chauvinists over women's rights.

Ann isn't buying the divisive argument that Trump is anti-women, saying that giving women special allowances because of their gender is condescending. You can't eat cake and have it, too. If you demand equal treatment, be ready for equal treatment. One can't beat Hillary if one is too concerned with sparing her feelings. We are all adult individuals.

While fighting patriarchy in our society, she says, the radical leftist feminists went too far and destroyed manhood itself, along with fatherhood. It's bad for the families, for the children, and especially for women. Ann sees Trump as a successful male role model and a father figure. If he weren't one in real life, his own children wouldn't have turned out so well.

The Left has emasculated our men, she says. Fathers in popular culture changed from "Father Knows Best" to Homer Simpson: the butt of all jokes and the last to get the joke. Fatherless children who grew up watching The Simpsons are father-hungry. Trump, she says, will be like the dad who comes home to an out-of-control house party, makes the kids clean up, kicks out the troublemakers, and sues their parents for damages.

Ann sees today's emasculated warrior class, with new recruits using time-out cards if under too much stress, and she is worried about their ability to defend us. She sees the European "men" who do nothing to protect their women or their nations from organized, systemic rape by Sharia-fueled "guests," and predicts that will happen to us, too, if we don't change course.

She sees the spineless millennials wishing for Bernie Sanders to ensure their perpetual childhood, and she blames the leftist education for crippling their minds and souls. The worst part is that these young doormats hate, not those who disabled them, but those who keep spines intact. Ann believes we have entered the age of fear and denouncements, where anyone with a spine is automatically perceived as a fascist, racist, homophobe, Islamophobe, and so on.

Trump is giving American men permission to be men again, to say what they think, and to stand tall without guilt or fear, says Ann. She quotes Billy Graham: "Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened." No wonder Graham's son endorsed Donald Trump. With Trump as president, a new generation of Americans will have a chance to grow up having a spine, with a positive male role model to compensate for their fathers who are either missing or have been neutered. His campaign slogan may as well be, "Men! Take back thy manhood!"

After seven painful years of watching our Commander-in-Chief bunny-hopping down plane and helicopter steps, struggling to lift one-pound barbells, girl-throwing first baseballs in mom jeans, and dressing up in little cowboy outfits, the country needs a masculine reset.

The return of a strong, manly man to our culture will be great news for women, who have grown tired of being single-income mothers, leaders, fighters, and protesters, Ann says. And America will have a chance to get back its emotional and psychological health, confidence, optimism, and positive disposition that's been missing for too long.

Colin

Colin had a successful international career as a dancer and choreographer, ranging from performing and teaching classical ballet to modern dance, from acting on Broadway to choreographing dances for some of the most famous pop stars, whose names I'm withholding for obvious reasons. In case anyone is wondering, Colin is not gay and lives with a long-time girlfriend. He also has a sizable collection of guns, likes hunting and fishing, and drives an SUV. Having been to every corner of the earth, he retired and became my neighbor here in Florida, where we became good friends and have spent many evenings playing music and sharing stories.

Colin never spoke about politics and whenever I or anyone else touched on that subject, he would start singing some silly tune in a loud, raspy voice, ending any possible debate. That was until this summer, when he decided to support Donald Trump. Not only did he tell this to all his friends and neighbors, some of whom were die-hard liberal leftists; he also called everyone in his phone book, encouraging them to vote for Trump as well, thus becoming an unaffiliated Trump campaign volunteer.

His reason for the sudden change of heart was that for the first time in his life he heard a presidential candidate whose words made perfect sense. All the others, according to Colin, were trained weasels giving rehearsed performances, which he could instantly spot with his professional background. Unlike the rest, Trump spoke off the cuff, didn't mince words, called things by their real names, and used strong language when necessary, unconcerned about what society and the media would say about that behind his back. I couldn't help noticing that, in a way, Colin was describing himself. If he were ever to go into politics, he would've done it pretty much the same way, except for the hairstyle.

Christina

Christina has a PhD in literature, but her academic career ended when she evolved from a liberal into an outspoken conservative. All her previous activism in helping the inner city families, being involved in refugee resettlement programs, working with the ACLU, and other liberal credentials didn't matter anymore. She became an untouchable and soon lost her job. Since then she has been active in local Republican politics and Tea Party circles, exposing the rot in America's education system, fighting Common Core, and organizing book tours for conservative authors.

She sees Trump as the only candidate who is not buying into the neurotic identity politics that's currently driving both political parties. In her experience, identity politics and political correctness are the drivers of fascism in America today. In that sense, Trump is the most anti-fascist candidate in the race -- and the most optimistic one, too.

The first Trump rally she attended was different from all other political events she has seen, which usually attract party regulars and the party elite. The people in this crowd weren't very political; many of them first-timers -- those who don't live and die over the latest little fluff-up in DNC or the GOP or even the Tea Party. Christina thought that was very significant.

There were old people, young families, teenagers, blacks, whites, and a good number of Southeast Asians. This was in Norcross, Georgia, which has one of the most ethnically varied populations in the South and maybe even the U.S. It's a major refugee placement site and also attracts immigrants from India, Asia, and Africa. So there are a lot of immigrant entrepreneurs and small business owners in Norcross, and she saw a lot of that actual diversity -- including economic diversity -- in the crowd, says Christina.

She doesn't understand how anyone in the GOP could be so recalcitrant as to not see this as an extraordinary opportunity to grow the GOP brand. Trump alone has the ability to move people towards conservatism: doesn't the GOP get that? Christina sees Trump as an object lesson in moving towards conservative values in his own life, and he can move other people in the same direction.

She objects to the description of Trump supporters as angry. There was no love lost for either political party or for the media in that crowd, she says, but the people weren't angry at all: they were optimistic. It was the sort of optimism people felt when Reagan was elected. Trump's message was patriotic and positive, praising America's virtues and the value of hard work and self-sufficiency. It's sad that the Republican Party couldn't see the extraordinarily positive message Trump was delivering, and the positive spirit with which it was received.

At that moment, the election could have been in the GOP's hands, had they not launched a coordinated assault on Trump and his followers. The editors at National Review and others of their ilk ought to be on their knees celebrating their good luck that someone like Trump has come along at this particular moment in American history. But instead, they're so angry they're overturning their sandboxes and pitching tantrums, she says.

Imagine how different this race would be if the GOP hadn't tried to salt the earth around Trump and his supporters, says Christina. She believes that if they had only remained neutral, the party would currently be growing by leaps and bounds. The very landscape of the electorate would be shifting towards conservatism and away from liberalism. But it was more important for the party elites to control people than to listen to them.

* * *

At the risk of alienating many of my readers (if they are still reading, of course), let me say that I share all these opinions and have plenty of my own to add, but that would have to be my next essay.

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I hope I won't insult anyone's intelligence if I ask to abstain from insults.

RULES FOR THIS DISCUSSION:

Don't make me post the full set of rules!

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Glorious Kubist Komrades!

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Speaking of Belgium:

population:
I think that the Belgian (and in general: the Western European) public is almost solidly anti-Trump. Even anti Political Correctness friends of mine can say no good word about him. I have stopped trying :) It's funny because it's true Doublethink(tm) in all it's glory: they might be 100% pro border fences and strong immigration laws, but would start bashing Trump on his mexican wall. They'd talk about too much muslim immigration, but would say Trump's "temporary ban" is evil. It's all so strange :)

media:
The media in Belgium, well... I think you can guess :) Being anti-trump is so "basic" that there is not really any form of debate. Up until a few weeks ago, a radio star would start anti-trump narrative, convinced of the Holy Truth of the Anti-Trump movement. Opposing that, well... nobody would take you serious anymore. Since Trump's candidacy has become more serious and he got more and more support, they are also treating him more as a serious candidate. But often you can hear - sometimes between the lines - the opposition against a Trump presidency in many talk-shows, mainstream media outlets and interviews.

politicians:
In Belgium, the NVA politician (and chairman of the Parliament) Siegfried Bracke said something like "it's good Trump shakes the system" during an interview (behind pay - wall, cannot link it here) in a major newspaper (de standaard). He was referring to the current political correct climate of the western world. I think he's about the only one up 'til now...

Other leaders in Europe that are anti-PC in a Trump kind of way? I think Orban gets close... maybe Frauke Petry from AFD. Of course Nigel Farage from UKIP. But in mainstream media in Belgium these people are rarely given a free forum. And even they would not dare (I think) to openly support Trump in a serious way: it would be too "out of the box" for most Europeans. But our Hungarian, German and British Kubists will have to answer for that :)


myself:
I cannot vote in this election, so who cares right? But I do have an enormous, visceral aversion against every form of smug, pseuo-intellectual finger-waving condescending political Korrekt thought - control. If any person with Trump's number of supporters gets ridiculed in the name of "Correct Thinking" without any honest attempt to fight his ideas with good arguments then I immediately get a lot of sympathy for him (I am talking mainly of the European media now, I cannot speak entirely for the US of course).
Apart from that, I'm not sure who I'd vote for if I were a US citizen.

Komrades, make the right choice (whoever it may be), and do not forget to laugh!

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Oleg:
As usual, a compelling post full of thoughtful commentary. I particularly like the observation about Cruz being the type who memorizes the chemistry book. My main problem with Trump is that he simply doesn't seem conservative. Might be worth seeing him in office just to witness the fireworks, which hopefully won't be nuclear.

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Image With all due respect, the media in the states is all in for Donald – at this point in time.

The numbers illustrate this quite nicely - As of March 15 the media has bequeathed a $2 billion gift to in free media to Donald:
The media's $2 billion gift to Trump
The Prime Time Primary: Trump vs. His Rivals on Cable News

Our study found that FNC spent much more time interviewing Trump and his surrogates than either of his GOP competitors. Over the past four weeks, Trump was interviewed for a total of 178 minutes on Fox, vs. 106 minutes on CNN and 43 minutes on MSNBC. (Interviews includes network-sponsored town halls as well as sit-downs with a network host, but not debates or live coverage of rallies or speeches.)
Image And for those who may dispute this asseveration, I would ask when was the last time Donald had to deal with a challenging interview?

The tremendous advantage coupled with Donald's celebrity status has driven his polls numbers, but these advantages would quickly turn to dross were the Donald disaster to befall the nation. The past is prologue and it should be obvious they are holding their rhetorical fire until the right moment just as they have with the last few presidential contests.

His onetime media allies would quickly turn on him and unleash a media onslaught the likes of which no one has seen before. One cannot under estimate the stakes in this election of the US and the rest of the world. This one is for all the marbles, for if the left wins this one we will have reached the point of no return.

Most, if not all analysis shows this to be the case to the point of being a landslide for them:
Trump Can't Win
Electoral Map: A Clinton blowout, higher GOP 'defection rate'
The stark reality is that were Donald to become the nominee, the result would be catastrophic to say the least. The national Socialist left would win the general election contest with a predicted down ballot apocalypse, a leftist extreme court would eviscerate the bill of rights and the border would be opened to the illegal invasion.

We would no longer have control over our own destiny, and the only other recourse would be a second civil war or revolution. And trust me, I have heard this sentiment expressed by more than a few people who happen to be Donners [Donald Trump supporters], one of whom was running for office.

As a student of history, one of my favorite pastimes is to tour battlefields and historic sites to walk the ground of places that have witnessed of time's inflection points. Like it or not, we are all in one of those moments in time that could diverge either way towards liberty or towards tyranny. It is my firm belief that supporting Donald would send everyone on the later course on the road to tyranny.

That is why I support Ted Cruz.
We do not have any other choice in the matter.

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Comrade Torcer -

You didn't see me trashing Cruz, did you? Why don't you stick to the same rule?

You just confirmed my earlier point that Cruz supporters can't praise their candidate without throwing a shovel load of troll poo at anyone who doesn't pledge allegiance to their guy. That's not attracting people to your cause; most normal people will just run away.

Worse yet, your load of troll poo came pre-packaged, with a "made in Nevertrumpland" label. Now, how exactly does joining forces with the Establishment make you "anti-Establishment?"

The campaigns have thrown (and will continue to throw) all kinds of political poo at one another. That's what campaigns do. But then some people like to pick up the splatter and smear themselves and others in it. Such behavior is more suitable on social media or some political websites dedicated to this sort of activity. Let's keep it there.

There's a lot of troll poo that can be thrown at Cruz as well. But if we start depositing it here from both sides, we'll all drown in it and our glorious red pages will become brown. Let's not do it, if only for sanitary purposes.

But since you have already threw in some of that poo, I'll have to clean it up:

Much of that media attention you mention was negative (e.g., Chris Matthews, Megyn Kelly, etc.), translating into high negatives for Trump - something Cruz never fails to mention. Besides, those negatives are passed from the US media to the international media, as we're seeing from the overseas comments (more to come). You can't eat cake and have it, too. Those who accuse Trump of whining shouldn't whine themselves, don't you think?

Now, please, no more copy-pasting of random links and campaign talking points from either side. This thread has a theme and a purpose: your personal experiences only, preferably if it relates to foreign perceptions of this campaign.

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Comrade Red Square:
1. I was not condemning #Donald Per se, but merely pointing out the manifest advantages he's had so far that will not exist in the General election cycle.

Thus the extreme danger of the situation.

2. The links I posted were to bolster my points as to this treatment.

3. Further still, the links to the analysis I posted showing a catastrophic loss were sourced from many varied polling units and the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.

Now, you asked for my personal experiences and I outlined some of them at the end of the piece.

You have my apologies for not precisely understanding the purpose of the piece, but the facts are the facts in the media coverage of the primary season.

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Okay Kids,

So Red emailed me as part of an ongoing discussion, and he asked me what Kanadistanjians think of Trump, in general, and if I actually knew anyone who supported Trump, and if so, why... and if not, why...

So I conducted a small survey/study, which I can't really call scientific, just because the sample size was so small that I can't remotely claim it reached ∑, but here's what I came up with.

... No. (or for those more colloquially inclined, Nope.)

Most of those I spoke to consider themselves at least fiscally conservative, but that might be part of why I got the result I did. While many Kanadistanjians are fiscally conservative, we tend to also have a strong streak of social consciousness, for lack of a better way to put it, or conscience... it's one of those (apologies for bad grammar) things that I can never quite decide the right word for so I offer both. Even those of us who believe that there's not anything wrong with a two-tiered medical system for those who can afford to pay, generally feel precisely that, because we realize that anybody who's rich enough to pay for their medical care is taking those consumer dollars outside of Kanadistan, and why shouldn't they stay in our economy? It's just stupid to force people to buy something, even medical care, outside of Kanadistan, and ultimately, we can use the tax dollars from pay-for-medical services for the universal health care system. I mean, seriously... look at the UK. Their universal or National Health Service gets worse and worse every year, but by the same token, we fear a national health care safety net as fragmented as the US'. Sorry... that may seem off topic but I think it's necessary to explain the Kanadistanjian psyche, at least a little.

Anyhow, of those who would categorize themselves as fiscally conservative but don't like Trump, I can pretty much sum up their dislike of him as a possible President in terms that are also very Kanadistanjian... he's too much of an egotistical asstard.... He's too full of himself. He lacks Kanadistanjian humility... We are a nation that, in spite of everyone thinking we say 'eh' a lot, actually use the word 'sorry,' more than any other country, and in multiple ways... It can mean 'pardon,'... "excuse me,"... "I understand how you feel,"... and innumerable other things, and when people tell us that it annoys them how we use 'sorry,' so much in conversation, we generally reply by saying... you got it... "sorry."

It's our innate British-ness that we can't escape. We are much more able to talk about emotions and feelings than the Brits, but we still have an innate dislike of flashiness and a lack of humility. We are made uncomfortable by people who are overly loud and self-serving and who toot their own horns and draw attention to themselves, except for Drake, who does it in the name of our only basketball team. We are shy people... stuck somewhere between our British past and our neighbours to the south.

So, even those of us who consider ourselves relatively conservative, or like me, heterodox, innately shy away from people like Trump because he is loud and boorish. I have said that I feel some despair over our country's recent choice of Prime Minister, given that truthfully, I am literally more qualified than he is to run a country, and yet, when there is someone who is potentially (and I'm still not sure about this) fit to run a country in a more business-like way, exactly when it needs to be run that way, we dislike him... because he's loud and boorish. I cannot bring myself to like him, even if I know I don't need to like him to think he's more capable than his opponents. I think many of us in what, to use what most believe is a Drake-ism, but which has been around since just after we amalgamated our city... that many of us in "The 6" look at Trump, and think, "seriously... you'd make a bigger badder version of Rob Ford your president?"... And maybe that is what it comes down to...

We aren't that sure that despite his wealth and seeming business acumen, he's as good at it as he likes to think, and he wants others to think. He's had as many business failures as he's had successes, and if this election were taking place at any other time... in the past, when he was on the verge of bankrupting his own businesses, we'd think he wasn't such a great choice. And that is perhaps why, we are uncertain and somewhat dubious or doubtful... because although he might be on the upswing right now, he has, in the past, not always been as risk averse as he should be, and so simply because, business-wise, he is successful, we don't quite trust his level of risk-aversion when it comes to running a country. Historically, many successful business figures have been megalomaniacal, critical, dictatorial, imperious, and culturally-demanding or onerous (in terms of their businesses), larger-than-life figures, but it is those very qualities that concern us, because historically, the brashness that allows them to come out on top, ultimately includes many missteps along the way. We would be more comfortable with someone (don't cringe please, because I know he's a democrat) Warren Buffett-like in his business persona, than Trump... and simply because he is quieter, more grandfatherly, but clearly, no one can fault his business acumen (even if I don't support his politics), and he has a level of risk-aversion we are comfortable with.

So, there you have our basic national quandary... for those of us who believe in fiscal conservatism, Trump is too much of a loose cannon. His hyperbole. His brashness and boorishness. His over-bearing personality... and the fact that in spite of his current success, his some-time lack of risk aversion that has gotten him into trouble in the past, are worrying to us. But as with most elections, we look toward the south and shake our heads and think to ourselves, "sorry," (as in, we understand how you feel, in this instance) because we don't know that any of the other candidates are any better and some of them are clearly far worse, and so... as with so many elections, it doesn't come down to picking the best candidate, but the least worse one.

So, while I can't really do what Red asked, which is come up with a statistically meaningful answer, that then probes the 'why's', I can at least explain why in spite of the fact that most of the people I talked to don't want to see another Democratic president in the White House, most innately shy away from Donald Trump as an alternative. It's more soft science than hard, but then, I'm not a polling organization and don't have their resources. I do know that most I talked to have that recently released study in their minds, that not surprisingly, finds that most politicians lie more than the average person, and that in societies whose leaders lie more, it seems to make it more allowable for the average person, so there is a certain trickle-down effect culturally, but given how hyperbolic he can be, I think we shy away from Trump more, because he does say some ridiculous things... And there was that 'reality TV show" of his, which I suspect did more damage to his imagine than less.

Of course, much of what Red wrote in his essay speaks to the fact that at this is a point in history, the US needs a strong leader who is not afraid to say what they think and do what needs to be done... and that requires a strong personality. So, just to make this clear, it's not that Kanadistanjians look to milquetoast leadership, per se. They just don't necessarily feel comfortable with overly loud people. And I don't think that the conservatives I spoke to think that Trump or his followers are angry or stupid. What many of them said is that in spite of trying, there is so little written in the press about Trump or his supporters that does not follow the narrative that Red talked about that they have any way of making a fair judgement, and so they have started ignoring a lot of what is being written... most of it, actually... and as a result, they are left with the remembrances of a reality TV show, and a personality that was cultivated long before he felt the need to fill a vacuum in US politics, which is sad, but also to be expected, given that most of us no longer trust the mainstream media, right or left, in any wise, and haven't for a long time. It's how people like me end on up sites like this, and stick with them almost from day one. The fact that more truth can be gleaned from a political satire site than from an actual news outlet is disheartening, and speaks to the absurdity and entrenchment of mainstream politics. And we are aware of that, which is what makes us keep looking at Trump and not simply making up our minds, throwing up our hands, and walking away. We are looking for some truth that we haven't found yet... and we know we haven't found it, but we don't know where to look anymore. And our media isn't any better. But then, it's not like we can pop down there and go to see him speak, and the only media outlet that has sent someone down there to cover any of his speeches, generally sends people so utterly inept and so completely bafflegabbed and gobsmacked by their own employers' narratives that they are incapable of meaningful coverage of any of his appearances.

So, here it is... The best possible media coverage any of us have seen on Trump has been written by Red, a person who isn't enfranchised to vote, but who is, thankfully, devoted enough to concepts of right and wrong, honour, good, involvement and enfranchisement, and to a culture of character rather than a cult of personality, that he can't walk away, even though his devotion to these things has never made his life easier, and has probably made it much more difficult at times. But sadly, this also means we are left looking for some truth on a political satire site, which says much about the general state of things today, politically or otherwise. I do know that having passed the link to his article to my friends, many of them are doing their best to reconsider things, and to find sources that are not as entrenched in the existing narrative, which can never be a bad thing. And having said that, what it comes down to is that we don't have to 'like' someone to think they would make a good leader, and in fact, there is often much not to like, given the qualities required to succeed in politics, and we'd be fooling ourselves if we believed otherwise. So, while this time around, the answer was "Nope," I suspect that were I to repeat the exercise in a couple weeks, it might come out differently, which is no bad thing. And maybe there are some who weren't willing to own up to thinking Trump is a good choice, but will start to feel more comfortable if they do, at least among friends. Again, no bad thing. For myself, I'm still not sure, but am willing to continue reevaluating.

That said, I can also say that 87% of people make up statistics, so any I provided as part of a response to Red's request would be questionable at best... I will tell you all what I recently told him, and which I think is very important, which is, almost everything tastes better with hot sauce... and ultimately, given that it's the little things in life that usually make it worth living, I think that's a lot more important to remember than any political conversation we have, especially given that after the election, it will all be moot... but almost everything will still taste better with hot sauce... The world is full of so many things that are grey, so it's good to have some black and white's once in a while...

Good Luck!
SMO

Ps... Seriously... the conversation that got to the hot sauce was about how people develop, politically and how they mature emotionally... and I pointed out that one of the few things that doesn't taste good with hot sauce is granola, which is a very good reason not to trust granola-heads...

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Red Square wrote:Image
A PREFACE FOR THE PEOPLE'S CUBE [ FULL PROG OFF ]



[highlight=#ffff00]At the risk of alienating many of my readers (if they are still reading, of course), let me say that I share all these opinions and have plenty of my own to add, but that would have to be my next essay.[/highlight]

Image Are you kidding me, most dear Comrade Red? I would never abandon you!

I am most grateful for your willingness to post this. I will crawl through glass shreds to support you. Thank you for helping me express my voice. You always say it better.
What an amazing and inspiring article. Thanks from the bottom of my heart!

Oh yeah, and you too, darling SMO, for contributing to this wonderful post.

Love,
Pammie

What? Two precious non-citizens who love the United States as much as we do!
I'll make sure your opinion counts by representing you!

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Image
Dear Comrade, The Glorious Peoples' Direktor, Red Square...

First... how in the mother-freaking hell do I get rid of the ad in the upper left hand strip of my browser that is not a pop-up, and which reads "Watch cult Horror movies online for Free! WATCH NOW" and which has a picture of that really creepy doll, Chucky, staring at me... sometimes not staring at me because his eyes are gone and the empty sockets have worms crawling out of them... Don't get me wrong. I like a good horror movie, but there is something about dolls that freaks the shit out of me, probably because as the daughter of hippies who had me when they were in university, and so didn't have a lot of money to buy toys when I was a kid, and those I had tended to be building or learning things, or were made by my folks, and always seemed to be the envy of my friends, but I didn't have dolls, and was never interested in them... also, I never quite got the point of... say... Hungry Hungry Hippo... it really seemed as if the novelty would wear off in less than two or three minutes, and then you're left with a plastic board that has buttons on it that make plastic hippos pop out and close their mouth on a marble, which even I couldn't find a way to make interesting by taking it apart, short of beating it to death with a hockey stick... So I had more imaginative and fun toys that I could make into anything I wanted... not weird freaky rubber or latex or plastic simulacra of mini-humans with dead eyes (even when they moved) or strings that made them talk in weird and clearly inhuman voices... My cats could sound more human... And which I didn't actually ever have until my sixth birthday when someone gave me one of the new Barbies that had latex covered knees rather than hinges, and I was more interested in understanding how the knee joint worked so I took it apart, after which I had no use for it, so my teenaged second cousins and I hung it from the swing set one long weekend at a family BBQ, and wrapped it in fire crackers and blew dat sh*t up!!! I made it into a learning toy... and then I made it into a rather enjoyable lump of slag... and I still can't stand dolls... I realize that these things are a function of analytics and algorithms, and that somewhere along the line Big Data must have gleaned from some searches that I did, some information which their algorithms wrongly interpreted as me being a male between the ages of 14 and 46... or maybe it's just something on the site, but if I can get rid of it, it would be seriously awesome. Anyhow, thanks...

Okie Dokie...

Hey Sister Comrade Pamalinsky,

I actually thought the same thing when I read that particular statement in Red's post. Seriously, if people are going to get their backs up on the Cube, and at anything the Peoples' Direktor writes, I'm not sure this is the right place for them. After over 10 years of reading his wit and wisdom, and seeing how we deal with everything from trolls to useful idiots (which comes from his belief that even morons have a right to speak their minds, and that all we're doing is giving them enough rope to hang themselves... although they usually screw even that up, and then blame us), I can't imagine anyone would be alienated by an honest commentary on a serious subject. In the over ten years I have been on the Cube, I have never seen a troll's comment deleted, whereas I have seen many of us posting on a troll's site completely and utterly knocked off, deleted, edited, and locked out for good (I always wonder what is it that they're so afraid of while they're whinging on and on about free speech but censoring ours...)... and not only do we not ever remove them, but the worst that can be said is that occasionally we've appended a little note to the bottom of one of their posts, and even then, rarely... and when we point this out, they apparently - as my grandfather warned me would happen - burp, hiccup, fart and sneeze at the same time, and so their heads and asses simultaneously explode. My Grandpa was a font of wisdom.

But I do believe this is one of the last bastions of honest, open discourse. I can come, hat in hand, ignorant of something, but seeking serious answers, and which I've looked for elsewhere but the answers don't seem very clear or thorough, and be treated respectfully and with dignity. I can be as politically incorrect as I want to be, which is often when I'm at my most open and honest, and even if some disagree with me, we respect each others right to have a different point of view. And I have made some of the most steadfast and best friends I've ever had here.

Seriously - we have gone through two election cycles together... two hellacious outcomes... wars... personal attacks... more wars... history lessons... watching the site grow exponentially... we've lost great and admirable friends. But no matter what, we've always stuck to the principles on which Red founded the Cube, which is that it is a place where anyone can come and speak their mind, and all they have to worry about is that a lot of people much smarter, and much more informed, because they don't just make up their minds without testing their beliefs by understanding the arguments on both sides, will ridicule them ... but they won't be censored, or edited... at worst, on very very rare occasions, you might get mildly annotated... But who minds a slight annotation among friends... And if someone can't take the criticism, they really shouldn't be posting on a satire site...and they probably hate hot sauce.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang!
SMO

Ps... Oh Dear Lord... when I previewed the post, I got "Watch cult Action movies online for FREE! WATCH NOW... with Chuck Norris... not sure which Chuck/Chucky is more disturbing... both are a bit up-Chucky...

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Sister Massively Opiated wrote:Image
Ps... Oh Dear Lord... when I previewed the post, I got "Watch cult Action movies online for FREE! WATCH NOW... with Chuck Norris... not sure which Chuck/Chucky is more disturbing... both are a bit up-Chucky...

You said the name of 'he who should not be named'. What are you trying to do? Attract his presence? I do not know if he shows up every time someone chooses to say his name. Best not to attract this character. Also, how do you rate the elections? Stick a needle in the eye, pillow of death, or comfortably numb?

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Sister Massively Opiated wrote:Image
Dear Comrade, The Glorious Peoples' Direktor, Red Square...

First... how in the mother-freaking hell do I get rid of the ad in the upper left hand strip of my browser that is not a pop-up, and which reads "Watch cult Horror movies online for Free! WATCH NOW" and which has a picture of that really creepy doll, Chucky, staring at me... sometimes not staring at me because his eyes are gone and the empty sockets have worms crawling out of them... Don't get me wrong. I like a good horror movie, but there is something about dolls that freaks the shit out of me, probably because as the daughter of hippies who had me when they were in university, and so didn't have a lot of money to buy toys when I was a kid, and those I had tended to be building or learning things, or were made by my folks, and always seemed to be the envy of my friends, but I didn't have dolls, and was never interested in them... also, I never quite got the point of... say... Hungry Hungry Hippo... it really seemed as if the novelty would wear off in less than two or three minutes, and then you're left with a plastic board that has buttons on it that make plastic hippos pop out and close their mouth on a marble, which even I couldn't find a way to make interesting by taking it apart, short of beating it to death with a hockey stick...

Ps... Oh Dear Lord... when I previewed the post, I got "Watch cult Action movies online for FREE! WATCH NOW... with Chuck Norris... not sure which Chuck/Chucky is more disturbing... both are a bit up-Chucky...

[OFF]

If you're on Firefox:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... ck-origin/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... lock-plus/

If you're on Chrome:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... phjbkeiagm
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... cddilifddb

I've installed them both on my Firefox and I haven't seen ads for years. I can't recommend them enough, not only are the ads nowadays intrusive and annoying, I'd be willing to bet that 85% of them nowadays have some sort of malware or spyware.

I agree about both of the Chuckys. I don't see the appeal with Norris and horror movies are far outside of my wheelhouse. I'm more of a Citizen Kane or Grand Hotel kinda guy, but I'll watch a good western any day of the week.

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The author of the piece below just sent me this:

Why an Educated, Professional Iranian-American Woman Supports Donald Trump

Soheyla Kovach is a managing member of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent operation that publishes the manufactured home industry's two leading trade publications; public focused https://www.ManufacturedHomeLivingNews.com, and professional/investor focused https://www.MHProNews.com.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/9387350

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Trump meets Caitlyn in the Mens Room.jpg
Trump has cobbled together a strange set of bedfellows with his recent statement supporting transgender restrooms in North Carolina. But I'm sure all his faithful supporters will find a suitable excuse for politically correct DJ Trump. Or maybe they shared his New York values all along?

Trannies for Trump PArade.jpg

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I umm, have friends, no-lots of friends who are (cough) Trump supporters.

Some work with me and get paid the same as I do, and we even ahhh...eat lunch together

sometimes.

Image
I don't always care for their music, but some of it is ok, I guess.

They are raised in a different culture than we are, that's all.

That being said, would I let my sister date a Trump supporter?

Aww HELL no, that's unnatural...


mi
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Could you summarize the pro-Trump / anti-Trump split in your country

Ukraine, for one, is worried about Trump's earlier verbal advances towards Putin -- and Putin's endorsement of Trump. Though they agree, that anyone replacing the current Dear Leader will be an improvement, they are afraid, Trump will bring about a very small one.

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Of Krautland, by Kraut, for Kube.___( ... and the outer-Kube sphere, too )


PROG-OFF.jpg

AXIOM-2016
Whoever the R-Nominee [Trump/Cruz], your vote goes there __(and your vote goes - no sofa!).


[ XPLAIN : Not of R-zeal. Not even bikoz khi iz a myan !* But simply b/c Herself is incompetence in personam, and The Loon is, well, looney ( & both : hard leftists, a corrupt one, and a wild-eyed one ) ]

* as our Glorious Comrade Irina, eyes heavenwards, would thunderously voice it (
here).



caveat :
No polls, studies etc. behind me - just my Bauchgefühl (= gut instinct) speaking.
Generalities - e. g. "Europe", "MSM" etc. - inevitable, lest this becomes a tractatus.

distance :
Despite Internet ( the neo-Gutenbergian miracle ) plus Flying Carpets of heavy metal - Amiland is still "across the Big Pond", somewhat distant ( unless you study it daily ).

"Trump"-phenomenon is dyadic :
(1) tremendous anger of non-represented "KnuckleDraggers", who see their country spiraling down and the American Dream dwindling - both due to*.
(2) Trump-the-Man himself.

* (a) The Ruling Class versus The Unwashed - eternal problem, but yuuugely grown since Y2K
and (b) dominance (media+academia+education+pop-culture) of lefty D + leftish bully tactics
and (c) D's urge to hard-left, since the 60s, and in overdrive since 2004.
Ruling Class : brilliantly captured by Angelo M. Codevilla here, later extended in book.




So, this above was a general frame : focus = Trump-phenomenon, structure = (1) + (2).
From now on, my view.

G/E = Germany/Europe.
Ami, Amiland = (whaddya think?).
I(nter)net = that part with no yelling, no wild eyes, no gratuitous insult, no conspiracy theories.
cconserv. = clearly conservative ( mind : Sowell, Scalia/Thomas/Alito, VDH, ... ; polit : think Cruz/Lee/Gowdy/Sasse/... ; culture : Mr. "Empty Chair" = Mr. "Make my day" J, ...)


details @(1), anger :
high-five, Amis : we are in a similar boat ! _we : G as a country, E as a blob.
Here main aspects :

anger : G/E : palpable ( Inet, cconserv parties (typically : young) ) and visible ( streets + ___cconserv counterculture (very young, in E) )
anger - why : (E) EU = Überbureaucratic, imperial blob, low accountability, near-null elections.
anger - who : (E) cconserv people (usual age >40 or around 20) and non-cconserv but intuitive ___people (say, discontent "low class") ; (G) very strong in ex-DDR (no wonder).
anger - what : (E) EU seen as aloof & arrogant, sensed general disorder ("Euro-Socialisms" ___sclerotic, crumbling), potentially suicidal influx of "aliens" (mainly from MENA, 85% ___Muslims), incremental spread of Islamic demands (political/cultural/societal) ;
___G : influx-madness 2014..15 ; since early 2011 growing authoritarian gov-style (DDR 2.0).
anger - how : (E) cconserv parties, mainly since 2000 ( France, UK, Netherlands, also Italy, ___Sweden, Denmark, ex-Soviet-Block, + very young & strong in Germany (AfD) ) ;
___(G/E) (movements, populistic) : PEGIDA (origin G (in ex-DDR), against islamization, huge ___weekly marches in several cities) ; Identitäre/Identitaire (origin Austria, young middle class ___intellectuals, street activism = mirrored lefty street tactics, but elegant and minus Rage & Co).

(G) PEGIDA (& (E) offshoots) = Tea Party, Euro-Variant.
(A/G) Identitäre (& (E) offshoots) = think Amiland's "conservative counterculture" born 2010.



Amiland is now at crossroads, even more so than in 2012 ( or, for that matter, in 2008 - while HopeChangey's vapidity was on plain exhibit, and his dangerousness - narrow-minded, smug & cocky narcissist, radical lefty - well documented ( no, not in MSM - but e. g. here ) ).
_______________________________________ __( no blather there, it's archive-only material )
... and remember AXIOM-2016 .


Now, that (dramatic!) crossroads thing isn't much discussed in Europe, same in Germany.
Reasons are simple : G/E has ist own, massive problems. And next : G/E MSM lean heavily leftwards, so ( high-five, Amis, again ! ) there is some ( shallow ) plaudit for wonderful Empress, and the Repubs are Rethugs, business as usual, and likewise shallow.




Now, Trump.
You need to not only be close to Amiland to get a grasp of who that man is, you need to live in Amiland, say, the last decade.

Even to a moderately informed European, Trump is a TV showman, celebrity, "mogul", kinda Big Biz, skirt chaser, superrich, scandalous, self-made man, bankrupt, Big Jet, TRUMP Label, weird overcomb, colored man (orange), etc. - half blather, half grain of truth.

The more informed European will know Trump's (aesthetic) vulgarity, undeniable business talent ( even when born with a silver spoon in mouth, you don't go through heavy ups & downs, yet still somehow build a billion-scale imperium - without talent ), his inclination to cronyism ( to the left, and to the right - and, sigh, who, in Big Biz, does not play that game ? when "politics" eagerly crawls in the bed ? ), and his more-left-than-right bent ( but hey, the "left" is just more eager than the "right", to operate in crony mode - and in dirty crony mode ).

All in all, Trump is mercurial, seems to lack some really basic convictions, and up to now was not a "politico" - he just used politicians, that's it.

And given that Trump is such a multifarious man, you better be - physically - closer to him & his sphere of activities to aptly see through him, who & what he is. For this, you better had to look at him - over the recent decade or so - through Amiland's looking glass, than from far away, over Big Pond. That's the distance thingy, mentioned at the very beginnig, right ?



details @(2), Trump-the-Man : ___( from now on : Trump = T, for brevity )

Trump's (T's J) start into the "race" was fabulous.

He obviously has a first-rate radar for the mood of the audience. ( sample : T's Apprentice was alive - thus, also profitable - for a decade+ ; for sure, an outstanding result. )

More : T has a first-rate radar for the mood of the contry, of Amiland.
That's the anger thingy, mentioned at the very beginnig, ok ?

Next : I think (ah, feel) T is honest - not just opportunistic - with his "great again". He ( Big Biz man ) certainly has a good grasp of Amiland's undeniable downward spiral since the very end of the 90s, primarily caused by ( ever radicalizing ) leftism : the MSM leftism, the leftism of overwhelmingly lefty academia, and of course the "fundamental transformation" courtesy of Hop & Co.

( Hop : for me, HBO was in 2008-9 HopeyChangey ; then, his Messiah shrinking daily, in 2010-11 he was only HopCha, and since 2012 only Hop remained ; the rise of that obvious charlatan - polit-Marketing & MSM aided - was stunning ; the reelection quite a shock ;
in 2008/9 I was sure, it's going to be a disaster ; as for today, Hop exceeded my overall estimation ( not $$, but likely general damage - in societal cohesion, cultural rot etc. included ) by kinda factor of 3,5 (!) ; that mistaken I was in 2009 ! ; and of course, that "success" of Hop (& Co) was primarily enabled by kowtowing Repubs ;
_________________________hello, anger ! hello, crossroads ! hello, Mr. Trump (& his radar) ! )


Next : T's media-radar works !
In fall 2015, Repub debates start. Trump dishes out, hard, at times reckless, and "risky".
( ugh, Mr. T, that "out of ... wherever" ). MSM fall all over T. Candidate squashed ! Or is it ?

The more MSM attack, the more T hurls back at them. Result : MSM dwarfed, T in headlines, ( and media ratings rise, and so does their profit ).

That was a staggering lesson. Turns out, you can stand up to MSM ! And not only don't you drop dead, on the converse : you get more applause - from KnuckleDraggers, and their support grows !

( DISCLAIMER : KnuckleDraggers = (most sympatico!) those unrepresented, kinda betrayed Amis - identifying "center-right", watching Repubs in disbelief, then contempt, then anger, that anger )

Trump knows the workings of media ( just recall sample - that "You are fired" series, whatever its worth, keeps >10 years(!) in limelight. Next, he can talk bluntly, and he doesn't shun it. Next, he speaks a vivid language - not that slick, often half-dead, often Orwellian, very often empty, call it TinSpeak, of politicos.
________________( my private German word for this is HolzSprech )

Recap :
Trump has a first-rate radar - ear & sense - for the mood of a yuuuge part of the Nation.
He also has a first-rate radar - experience & vulnerability detection - for the scheming of MSM. And he - non-politico - speaks a vivid language.

At that point, T has created a positive feedback : the more he dishes out verbally, the more MSM - indignantly - attack T, and just therefore T gets more KnuckleDragger support, often just out of pure-wrath solidarity, basically an act of defiance of the "unwashed".

A non-politico, formerly thought to stumble early over his bluster, is still there - and that as top candidate, and since many, many moons. Pretty unheard-of, in Amiland.


So much for Trump's "magnetic" aura. The heart & warmth & likability thing.




Remains to ponder Trump's aptitude for POTUS (45). The brains & experience & character thing.

Trump is a contra-symmetric HopeyChangey.


symmetric : __( same/similar traits, albeit possibly in different hues )

both narcissists ( but : Hop is cold-arrogant ; extreme narciss ; "smartest person in any room" )
_____________( Trump is non-cold, and of kinda sympatico arrogance )


both thin-skinned ( but : Hop is seething & vengeful ; what he "defends" is his "Inner Messiah" )
_______________( Trump "defends" just Trump ( after all, isn't he a yuuuge persona ? ) )


contra : __( on some traits, they are diametrically opposed )

Trump : XXXL businessman ; lots of his products ( TRUMP ) are kitschy - but hey, folks buy it
Hop : carreer politico ; in 2008, as candidate for POTUS, his achievements were 2 books ( both autobiographies, highly faked ) + 2 "famous" speeches + a decade of "community organizing"

Trump : built a yuuuge firm conglomerate, now multi-billionaire ( father builder, ca. $300 M )
Hop : very narrow "real world experience" and "life experience" ( academia ( senior lecturer ), short gig as lefty lawyer, community organizing, and next : lifelong politico ).

Trump : ( basically : big scale "mover & shaker" )
Hop : ( basically : academia ( insignificant, lecturer ) + "carreer rabble-rouser" + politico )


( and both strike often that Mussolini-chin-up pose J ; aloofness & pride in concentrate )




Trump himself - briefly :


Trump's positives :

"high-energy", experienced exec , not-a-politico ( resonates - as the contempt for "Washington" is intense ) , straight talker ( sacred polit-"tabus" not tabu for T ) , strong emotional bond with supporters ( the dual : strong rejection by non-supporters ) , very confident in handling the MSM , daredevil in verbal fights ( which can backfire, however... ) , has the fight-spirit - a must-have when going into the final one-on-one nominee debates.

Trump's negatives :

persona / traits :
impulsive , potential ( likely? ) loose cannon ( e. g. as "daredevil" in verbal fights ) , crony ,
imho : when R-nominee, very likely to lose with Herself, The Empress ( yeah, she will be the D-nominee, absent some health-breakdown or FBI/DOJ-email-server-hammer ) ;
why lose ? not b/c Herself is bright ( she isn't ), but it seems possible to provoke Trump to quite dumb verbal "shooting-from-the-hip" ; how much & what kind of dreck in Trump's ( & Cruz's ) life is already waiting ( in Clinton doc-safes ) to be pointedly exposed, that's another question. The dreck in Clintons life is already known - so no news on this side, and they managed to "survive" all that, until now.

polit-knowledge/-experience :
ufff..... should T come into the finale, and then into WHouse, hopefully he will make real good choices of his advisers. ( btw, I thought exactly that after Nov. 2008 - a good set of advisers - to whom then-HopeyChangey would actually listen - was the only chance to not immediately, come Jan. 2009, slide into a nightmare of incompetence. We know what happened : the deep, extreme narcissus choose sycophants, and only such ones who always agree and never object. And remember that "I think that I'm a better... ?" ).



Trump for P45 ? :

For clarity : Trump was in the early primaries phase ( well over half a year ) a real trailblazer as regards the attitude of Beltway conservatives towards MSM. He demonstrated, live, that tiptoeing & kowtowing to the Extended Party-Arm ( of the Caring Party, of course ), which is what Ami MSM have become ( same, yet less ostentatiously, for Germany & Europe ), can be entirely dropped. He also demonstrated, what has since long - since "ever" - been known : explicitly voicing apparent "tabus", set by the Ruling Class, draws the resigned folks out of slumber. Alias : of course there is a place in the sun for classical conservative thinking & attitudes explicitly & loudly voiced, coram publico .
The Donald did in that respect an invaluable service to Amiland-2000.


( once more, caveat : I can't follow in detail what T says/does - time is a finite ressource ; so, my understanding of T in the election flow isn't broad & deep enough. )

Again a "learning while presiding" President ( supposed to learn the POTUS-ABC on-the-fly ).
( Hop had to walk in those shoes, with no exec-experience at all - a predictable desaster ;
Trump has the big-exec know-how, but also even less Beltway-know-how than Hop had in 2009 )


Then ( at this point in time ) there seems to be zigzagging & shifting in T's positions.
Is this more tactic, or more dancing on slippery surface ? I dunno. But oscillating in a broad spectrum from "I absolutely will do X" to "No, doing X is (stupid/unwanted(/impossible/...)" is not assuring. And btw, HopeyChangey-2008, assured that MSM will ignore near any of his blunders & lies, he used that "I'm a blank canvas, you paint on it whatever you wish" approach, and was one minute for X, and next minute against X, and also agreed with things said in the debates, as well as with their opposites, with impunity.

Then there is the long history of T's life showing that he seems to lack a solid basis & set of convictions. Then there is the (derived, and also explicitly seen) fact, that a "real" conservative he isn't. And a "real" liberal, or libertarian he isn't, too. Need not to be a "problem", but also may happen to just become such one.


My sense is, that T might be in all this more for his (yuuuge) ego, than for his (great!) country ; that he may ( high probability, imho) simply become a prince of further "progress" of cronyism - along his ties & networking with local & abroad industrialists (I mean cronyism, paired with further "progress" of already OverBig Gov) ; and that the envisioned upwardly spiraling U-turn towards "Amiland great again" may, indeed, effect an upturn of the economy - yet at the same time further cementing a next layer of the Ruling Class, a layer affine to the business world, but as aloof, unresponsive and finally as arrogant as the Ruling Class V.2000 Amis have today.

For those reasons, plus knowing the capacity, proved intellectual integrity, and quite long successful professional & political service of Ted Cruz ( think Texas ; not least, think also of Prof. Dershowitz' - a man of integrity - opinion about his best student ever ), I think, from far away, that Cruz is the best man ( also in confrontation with Herself ).

I wonder, what could be a place for The Donald ( VP with Cruz ? a new "Dept. of Economy" ? ). Alas, I woudn't be surprised, if Don would just wrinkle his nose and go his way.



_____________________... and remember AXIOM-2016 !



μ-APPENDIX - Anger in Europa : ___... tremendous anger of non-represented KnuckleDraggers ...

In most of Europe's countries, new parties pop up ( since ca. 2 decades, some very young ) to represent the "angry ones". The most infuential - in their country and also in the EU-blob :

Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary already got clearly conservative governments
( formed over the recent 2 years ). They played a major role in slowing & reducing the wild migration influx via the Balkans since fall 2015 ( Austria was leading, and Macedonia, supported by all just mentioned countries, could block a bottleneck passage ).

influential cconserv parties :
UK : UKIP , France : FN , Netherland : PVV , Germany : AfD , Austria : FPÖ.

AfD is particularly "out of the box" : formed 4 years ago, is now the Nr-3 in the party landscape ; that rise was driven by Bundeskanzler Merkel's de facto "everybody come here to us" of late summer 2015 - single-handedly proclaimed, to boot.

freshly baked :
a few days ago there was a presidential election in Austria ( probable runoff in a month ) ;
result : on top "right-winger" ( of FPÖ ) + an Independent ;
the "established" ( SPÖ (think D) + ÖVP (think R) ) far behind ( yep, far ) ;
all that of landslide magnitude - the first landslide since the end of WW2.
Austria ( yep, tiny Austria ) played a central role in blocking the idiotically Merkel-triggered uncontrolled influx of migrants via the Balkans.



Q : Are there "Trump-like" figures in Europe ? Meaning : straight-talking ones, of leader ___quality, appealing by classical, undiluted conservatism ?

A : yep. Think Viktor Orbán - PM of Hungary ( & head of Fidesz party )
___and Geert Wilders of Netherland, head of PVV Party.
___Netherland has particularly heavy problems with ( some of ) their Muslims ;
___( and Mr. Wilders has even bigger problems - just ask his entourage of bodyguards ).




loose remarks :


( well known, ascribed to many, yet most important - true : )

If you're not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative at 40, you have no brain.



Says sagacious Thomas Sowell : __________________________________( here Feb. 15, 2016 )

... Senator Ted Cruz has been criticized in this column before, and will undoubtedly be criticized here again. But we can only make our choices among those actually available, and Senator Cruz is the one who comes to mind when depth and steadfastness come to mind.



Time to see this here stress-tested ? :

I would rather be governed by the first two thousand people in the Boston telephone directory than by the two thousand people on the faculty of Harvard University. William F. Buckley, Jr.

User avatar
<off>
Brevity.
Soul of wit.

Give it a try.

<on>

FLOORWARD!

User avatar
Ivan the Stakhanovets wrote:<off>
Brevity.
Soul of wit.

Give it a try.

<on>

FLOORWARD!

Hi there, Ivan!

Good post!

Hope all is well with the family and the helicopter thingy, etc.

Your pal,
Pammie

User avatar
Image
Hiya Pamski!

yep, things are really looking up here!

User avatar
Trump Supporter Undergarment.jpg

Hopefully I am still allowed to laugh at the word "supporter". If not, I will happily retreat to a gulag for re-education.

User avatar
Konservative_Punk - you probably didn't read anything on this thread, otherwise you'd treat it differently.

That said, a quick Google search brings lots of similar results for Cruz. Click below.

        Mystery item No. 1

We can do this all day, going deeper into the gutter, but to what end?

Let me repost something I posted earlier here:

The campaigns have thrown (and will continue to throw) all kinds of political poo at one another. That's what campaigns do. But then some people like to pick up the splatter and smear themselves and others in it. Such behavior is more suitable on social media or some political websites dedicated to this sort of activity. Let's keep it there.

There's a lot of troll poo that can be thrown at Cruz as well. But if we start depositing it here from both sides, we'll all drown in it and our glorious red pages will become brown. Let's not do it, if only for sanitary purposes.

User avatar
Red Square wrote:Konservative_Punk - you probably didn't read anything on this thread, otherwise you'd treat it differently.

The title of this thread contains the words "Trump Supporters." Do you know what athletic supporters are? HINT: they are not sports fans. They "support" a certain part of the athlete. You posted images of various types of underwear featuring Cruz's name. That's not really the same as a jock strap is it?

I was taking a jab at the word "supporter" in the context of the name of a garment. I took no jab at anyone. I suppose I could have done a "Cruz Supporter" image, but the title of this thread contained the phrase "Trump Supporters." I could have made an image about Hillary Supporters, but women don't normally wear such "supporting" garments and the thread was not about her or Bernie.

Could it be that somebody is a little hyper-sensitive about his favorite presidential candidate and simply won't tolerate anything that does not cast him in the best possible light? It appears to me that the thought police are alive and well here at The People's Cube. Sadly, Next Tuesday has truly arrived in Cube-topia.

User avatar
Konservative_Punk wrote:
Red Square wrote:Konservative_Punk - you probably didn't read anything on this thread, otherwise you'd treat it differently.

The title of this thread contains the words "Trump Supporters." Do you know what athletic supporters are? HINT: they are not sports fans. They "support" a certain part of the athlete. You posted images of various types of underwear featuring Cruz's name. That's not really the same as a jock strap is it?

I was taking a jab at the word "supporter" in the context of the name of a garment. I took no jab at anyone. I suppose I could have done a "Cruz Supporter" image, but the title of this thread contained the phrase "Trump Supporters." I could have made an image about Hillary Supporters, but women don't normally wear such "supporting" garments and the thread was not about her or Bernie.

Could it be that somebody is a little hyper-sensitive about his favorite presidential candidate and simply won't tolerate anything that does not cast him in the best possible light? It appears to me that the thought police are alive and well here at The People's Cube. Sadly, Next Tuesday has truly arrived in Cube-topia.

If it means anything to you, Trump's my favorite and I thought the image was cheeky. Not funny, at least to my odd sense of humor, but it was definitely cheeky. I can see how it'd be funny, though, even to someone who supports Trump.

User avatar
Comrade Stierlitz wrote:
If it means anything to you, Trump's my favorite and I thought the image was cheeky. Not funny, at least to my odd sense of humor, but it was definitely cheeky. I can see how it'd be funny, though, even to someone who supports Trump.

What is "cheeky" if not the mockery of political figures that we engage in every single day?

Do we not also find humor in the double meanings of words sometimes? For heaven's sake, I even included a line about mocking the word "supporter," lest anyone should misunderstand, and still I was sent to the gulag.

I am astonished that I am forced to stand alone and defend a stupid throw-away piece of cheap humor because it infringes on Mr. Trump's right to be depicted honorably on this site. Last year, I did a piece for the "Denounce Ted Cruz" thread that featured Ted Cruz cat-juggling. I never imagined that I would have to defend such a silly piece of art here. It's as if the whole PC safe-space thing, despite our efforts to oppose it, has taken root and is an inevitable force here on the Cube. I am dumbfounded by the insanity that has taken hold of the people I once considered kindred spirits here.

User avatar
Dear Komrade Konservative_Punk,
You are not standing alone. I am here.
Everyone is a bit on edge here I guess because of what is at stake, our very futures.
Stierlitz likes to consider himself "cheeky". that's his "thing." He's not really. He's just young, and "cheeky" evidently is cool. He's alright. A good guy. (He will hate me for saying this)
You remain a kindred spirit to me, and probably Stierlitz, too.
Love,
Pammie

User avatar
Who knew? Things have really come full circle, have they not?

The People's Cube imitates The People's Cube

And to think we were worried that THE GOVERNMENT would clamp down on our free speech and need a reminder that THIS IS (or was) A PARODY SITE. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

User avatar
Pamalinsky wrote:Dear Komrade Konservative_Punk,
You are not standing alone. I am here.
Everyone is a bit on edge here I guess because of what is at stake, our very futures.
Stierlitz likes to consider himself "cheeky". that's his "thing." He's not really. He's just young, and "cheeky" evidently is cool. He's alright. A good guy. (He will hate me for saying this)
You remain a kindred spirit to me, and probably Stierlitz, too.
Love,
Pammie

[OFF]

Pammy, if "cheeky" is "cool", then the Germans won both world wars. And that's coming from somebody who doesn't even know what "cool" is, has never been "cool", and probably will never be "cool". All that I know for sure about "cool" is that if I am "cool", then I am also the president of Prussia. I accept your "alright" and "good", although I'd lean more towards "alright" than "good".

User avatar
Here we go again - a discussion I was trying to prevent on this particular thread.

This could have been avoided if Mr. K. Punk had gone into trouble to read this thread beyond the title. And since he hasn't, that just shows disrespect. And that amounts to trolling.

I don't have the time to explain this every time someone decides to post something off-topic, I've been through this many times and it gets tiresome.

Let's just say that it's not a matter of sensitivity. I don't worship Trump as some worship Cruz; this should be obvious from the story above. But I have noticed that many Cruz supporters, without fail, imagine that the best way to promote Cruz is not by saying positive things about him but by saying negative things about Trump and his supporters. The sympathies are divided probably about equally. So if we all begin to indulge in negativity and take shots at each other, we may as well close down this site.

So trying to steer the discussion away from negativity, albeit with some censoring, is a lesser evil in comparison to an all-out confrontation and resentment.

Please consider that the primaries will be over in a few weeks and this insanity will go away. What would you like to see when the smoke clears - all of us still intact, or smoldering ruins and a pile of dead avatars?


User avatar
....
__tmp.jpg
.....doubleplustrue, since Troglodytes roamed Mother Earth.

.....and : the doublepluspointed aim of this thread
.....is clearly stated in the very PREFACE :

Red Square wrote:... Could you summarize the pro-Trump / anti-Trump split in your country (or other countries you know) ...
alias : this thread has a non-standard purpose ; a plusimportant caveat, right on entry.

Means : any length, any viewpoints, but : stay on topic.
e. g. RS's opening : long & focused ; Minitrue : compact & to the point ; & both valuable.



Eminent Co-Comrades in The Victorious Fight For The Glorious Tomorrow !

Here my longggggggggggg post in short(est) : _________( btw, the post is marked PROG OFF ! )

0. my view, from (distant) G/E.
1. satire content as intended : null microgram.
2. conclusion : Trump very good in channelling of (real & justified) anger against (outrageously cloistered) Ruling Class ; yet still : Trump (as candidate) not alternativlos ; but, if nominated, give him 100% support. (no intent here to "school" the Glorious People of "USSA", just Axiom).

( btw, Trump's add-on to standard-speak, his zippy yuuuge is most sympatico, should patent it ! )


Of course it got longgg because I wrote it (not least) for myself - to pin down my thinking.


Comments :
0' : only my views : friends either shun all that, or bend left & drink (our) shallow MSM, as is.

Hint : Nearly no way to gauge Trump from "far away (think Big Pond)". The phenomenon : specific "anger" ( incl. thirst for non-glib non-smug non-scripted non-teleprompty non-politico words - here comes Trump ! ) simply can't beat the big, ah, yuuuge distance ( except, you listen very carefully to electrons whispering in Amiland-to-Europe undersea optical fiber cables ). And : Trump's "vibration" goes to a big, ah, yuuuge part not through media, but on a subtle/subliminal Anthropo-channel ― which to be able to sense/intuit, you have to really be much, much closer to "Trump's communications", including the net of friends, likewise close to the phenomenon. Red Square's Brendan and Ann illustrate the said subtleties very lucidly.

A' : should leftism prevail, come November, then : Amiland, now in red doodoo up to the navel, will sink further, up to the neck.

I have no vote here, of course (and, of course, had I one, I would follow my Axiom).

I have no doubt that Leftism, Ami Edition became (since 2004, loony BDS at basis) a toxic, hostile and destructive force which therefore has to be squashed, crushed, demolished. Its current drive is unmistakably totalitarian. The most basic factor in all this is immense cultural rot - started in the ‘60s (incl. anti-American posture, transmitted not least via pop-culture), getting momentum in the ‘80s (PC), accelerating since then - to the point that within the recent decade a real-life "spontaneous, bottom-up" censorship is on the prowl. Disunity and fragmentation of the social fabric are driven in broad daylight, via "community organizing" tactics and multichanneled ways (attacks going against family, against Christian religion, against the Cop, against the masculine & the feminine (Red Square's Ann articulates it aptly), against elementary common sense (oh, those shifting inner-identities, those Most Historically Urgent Problems Of Establishing Humanity's Encompassing Peeing Rules & Locations! Equally! and Justly!), ... ). ufff.

... and now, Comrades, let's (attendance mandatory !) alltogether stand up & sing !

User avatar
Red Square wrote:... a discussion I was trying to prevent on this particular thread ...
.....and : the pointed aim of this thread
.....is clearly stated in the very PREFACE :
Red Square wrote:... Could you summarize the pro-Trump / anti-Trump split in your country (or other countries you know) ...
alias : this thread has a non-standard (PROG-OFF) purpose ; a caveat, right on entry.



Analogy :

Assume, we had here a thread, explicitly and in a limiting way dedicated to "Photography, and only landscape, ok?".

And then : One post of Ami classics, B&W. Another one with (color) NASA satellite pics of Earth. Then sumptin' pin-uppy (yip?). Yet another, posts essay, on macrobiotic paraphernalia (huh?). The next one uploads some funky-music snip. (hyh?hyh?).

Now comes Comrade Director, says : hey, folks, didn't see the entry-agreement ?
And, wouldn't ya know, voices start : heh, heh, censorship !

Really? c'mon, folks ...
(1) don't trivialize "censorship", and (2) what about abiding by a (clearly expressed) "contract" ?



Next, "style" :

Kube, for sure, has a distinctive style. Like any doubleplus-above-standard thing has.

Style evolves ? ( yet always with Glorious Future before heavenward eyes ! ) ? _sure !

But : blur, dilute, dissolve style ? _what for ??
Why go the FBooky/Twittery/Pinteresty... way here, when there is FBook/Twitter/Pinterest... ?




....................GLORIOUS KOLLEKTIV OF THE KUBE - UNITE !

User avatar
Genosse Dummkopf wrote:GLORIOUS KOLLEKTIV OF THE KUBE - UNITE !

I must tell you comrade, that I admire the originality of your writing style immensely. It is infinitely more comprehensible than it first appeared to be, and humorously so. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the matter.

User avatar
Red Square wrote:Here we go again - a discussion I was trying to prevent on this particular thread.

This could have been avoided if Mr. K. Punk had gone into trouble to read this thread beyond the title. And since he hasn't, that just shows disrespect. And that amounts to trolling.

I don't have the time to explain this every time someone decides to post something off-topic, I've been through this many times and it gets tiresome.

Let's just say that it's not a matter of sensitivity. I don't worship Trump as some worship Cruz; this should be obvious from the story above. But I have noticed that many Cruz supporters, without fail, imagine that the best way to promote Cruz is not by saying positive things about him but by saying negative things about Trump and his supporters. The sympathies are divided probably about equally. So if we all begin to indulge in negativity and take shots at each other, we may as well close down this site.

So trying to steer the discussion away from negativity, albeit with some censoring, is a lesser evil in comparison to an all-out confrontation and resentment.

[highlight=#ffff00]Please consider that the primaries will be over in a few weeks and this insanity will go away. What would you like to see when the smoke clears - all of us still intact, or smoldering ruins and a pile of dead avatars?[/highlight]

Come On, Peeps! I vote for "all of us still intact!" rather than a smoldering ruin pile of dead avatars! Do you not see Comrade Red is saying this, not just for him, but for all of us?

Snap out of it! Pleeeeeeze! Just do it! I'm begging you! (no parodies allowed on this begging thing)

Another thing, Stop trying to out-prog Comrade Red! It'll never happen. He can write and think the chrome off a trailer hitch in a New York minute. Your attempts are futile! Submit!

Oh, did I mention, it's his site?

"Submit" on this site means you have total freedom to say the most absurd things you want but, you may be called on it by other members. (Comrade Red is a member) Just sayin'.

I have been called on some of my posts as well, I learned from them and am still here.

Just trying to help.

Love,
Pammie

p.s.: Let's truly unite. Seriously.

User avatar
Pamalinsky wrote: p.s.: Let's truly unite. Seriously.

[OFF]

Agreed. It seems that Red and KP had a bit of a misunderstanding, hopefully it's cleared up.

On another board that I used to frequent, and I've probably told the story before, there was a huge misunderstanding that I was a part of myself. A gentleman was making fan art, and since he was interested in Prussia, he put in some Prussian symbols. The art itself was tremendous, possibly the highest caliber fan art that that board saw and will ever see. These symbols were misunderstood to be of Nazi origin, something I misunderstood myself until a few months ago I saw more of his fan art on another website. I and many others thought he was a Nazi when he wasn't. The rules on this board were very totalitarian, you couldn't criticize or question the rules nor the moderators and sysops of it according to their rules. The mods/sysops could also be described as "shoot first, ask questions later", and this was to the chagrin of some of the more free-speech minded members of this board. Either you had to tow the party line and kiss the posterior of everybody with any power on the board or you were punished. To put a long story short the art-making gentleman found himself behind the barrel of the administration. People were misunderstanding his Prussian elements to be of Nazi origin and they wanted the art that contained the symbols that were supposedly of Nazi origin to be taken down. He was eventually banned for one week, found himself back for a couple days but then was banned for then three more weeks, and then the administration decided to ban him permanently. He left the board and now has very strong emotions towards it; I don't blame him. After that incident I noticed a change after this, a sort of god-complex that the administration was starting to show and exercise. I also left this board, mainly due to increasingly totalitarian rules that they were adding and tighter and tighter enforcement of them, but also because of the utter lack of due process and common decency that was demonstrated in their dealings with this gentleman.

I'm not trying to make an allegory or metaphor or what have you out of this by saying that X from The People's Cube is one person in the story and Y is another person. I'm just trying to illustrate what can happen if these sorts of misunderstandings are left to fester and brew until they explode violently. I'm glad that they are being resolved or vented off right here, right now before they can explode like the one on my story did.

User avatar
Comrade Punk, I hope to see you on this forum in the future, regardless of your differences with the Party ™.

Comrade Stierlitz: I fully agree, good it's all vented in the open.

Comrade Dummkopf: Wow. I think this comes close to the true Newspeak ™ as the master himself intended it.

Comrade Pam: I endorse your call to union with the official motto of the Eurocracy:

[attachment=0]stu.jpg[/attachment]



User avatar
CENSORED_Punk wrote:
Genosse Dummkopf wrote:GLORIOUS KOLLEKTIV OF THE KUBE - UNITE !
... Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the matter.
quid pro quo : ... Thank you for reading my thoughts on the matter. Really.


Genosse Dummkopf wrote:... c'mon, folks ... (1) don't trivialize "censorship" ...
. . . it's end of April. Spring now as sweet as that in stagione uno of Le quattro stagioni by Vivaldi ; getting warmer... can see from my lil' balcony snows, slowly melting... ; as days ripen, maybe the C thing also melts away... from the avatar... from the code name...

( Punky - no "schooling" here ; before I "school" anybody, I first go hang myself )



Pamalinsky wrote:
Red Square wrote:... primaries will be over in a few weeks and this insanity will go away ...
primaries will melt away... insania will melt away.... like those snows.....




wait - whad ? Apr. 30 ?
jejjjjjsusss, marijjjjja !
by golly ! tomorrow is Our Day, sweatily toiling Kube Proletariat ! On to polishing our shovels ! Intone the Kubinternationale ! Our Comrades of gender F radiate, ah, I mean transmit even more beauty then ever - red ribbons around them, in their gorgeous manes, around breasts swollen with pride ! hah ! And the portable 7x10 ft portrait of our Comrade Director ! Onward, Comrades - into the Glorious Future ! ( starting each year, on May 1st ... _since 100 years, now ... _and no end in sight ... _sigh ... )

( a few pics to follow below ) ( and concerning those "swollen with pride" - study socrealism, young man/transgender/whatever (before you think, I'm soft-porning here) )




P.S.
ach, ja. A factoid is on my mind - let's denote it "nah!". Frankly, I expect that no more than 1% of our yuuuge Kollektiv has ever heard the nah! . Even more, I wouldn't be shocked if I were the single one here, aware of nah! Despite it's even in Wikipedia (whatever WP's worth ; but the nah! entry - as well as hundreds-of-thousands other WP entries - is good and correct).

Here we go :
Focus = Germany, Question = Since when do we have the "May-1" here, who "installed" it here ?
na ? ... _na ?? .... __na ??? ..... ___nna ?? ......

Answer : nah! = Nazi Adolf Hitler. yep.

says WPedia : ... In April 1933, the recently installed Nazi government declared 1 May the "Day of National Work," an official state holiday, and announced that all celebrations were to be organised by the government ... ( here, scroll down to "Germany" ) - alias BigSozGov in brown.

This might be a shocker (sure as hell, for any "true" lefty). It's not so much a shocker for those who remember that "Nazi" comes from "NSDAP", the party, and the S in NSDAP stands for "Sozialistische".

Have (hard-)lefties among friends, family etc. ? Just ask them about the "nah!" factoid, hehehe.
(of course was Nazism a leftish thing ; different from Communism only by not turning the whole economy into "public sector", "totally shared" ; Nazism was content with strong cronyism.)

User avatar
.
... just à propos "May-1" and "breasts swollen with pride", mentioned above :
.
kna.poster.DDR.1953.1-Mai.Marx.Engels.Lenin.Stalin.jpg
DDR ( how d'ya know ? ) ( flag ? )


kna.SU.poster.(pioneer).Lenin.Pionier.Fsjegda gatof.Будь готов! Всегда готов!.0.jpg
( these days - 21 century )


kna.fractals.DDR.1953.05.01.(Marx.Engels.Lenin.Stalin).Berlin, Marx-Engels-Platz, Demonstration.EXCERPT.(w=600).jpg

DDR ( how d'ya know ? ) ( hehehe, see first row vs. second row ) ( A. D. 1953 )


SU.poster.Soviet-Sport.Fizkultura.XTremeSports.1.jpg

( breasts swollen with pride ! ) ( ca. 1930 ) ( and Moscow - clearly recognizable, that Square )


POL.PKiN.Cycasta-Cyrce.Agros.triptych.L.(w=600).jpg
( breasts swollen with pride ! - socrealism ! ) ( where is this? he who knows is a genius ! )


POL.PKiN.Cycasta-Cyrce.Agros.triptych.R.(w=600).jpg

( even more breasts swollen with pride ! - socrealism ! ) ( genius - second chance ! )


( UPDATE, May 13, 2021
( Near exactly 3 years later: vee haf ze WINNER!!! Komrade KOOK!!!!! )

or this gorgeous krasavitsa, ah, cutie ? :

SU.poster.Let`s rebuild in the best way.1945.woman.frog-perspective.jpg
... here I voluntarily admit - no torture, no GULAG needed ! - this is really sexy...
( eyes go dreamy... )
that shovel, ahh... !




parody.woman.(Women Day).erotika.wot-wam.товарищи женщины вот вам.(Commissar).(see - SU.poster.You volunteered for recruitment_).EXCERPT.jpg
Comrades of gender F - for you !





( who can't locate this below is a dummkopf ! ) ( A. D. 1969 )

DDR.20. Jahrestag der Gründung der DDR.1969.10.07.jpg




. . . and this post-modern sweetie ( advanced "breasts swollen with pride" level ! ) :

SU.Worker-and-Kolkhoznitsa.Железная парочка.25m.Kolchosnitsa.Rabotschij.parody.jpg
BTW :
The referred original is a first-rate piece of art (particularly so, if backgrounds are understood), by a high-class artist (Vera Muchina).

That original has been egregiously misused for mindless propaganda. The artist's intent was to have the 80 ft high group placed on ground - yet it was exposed on idiotic 150+ ft plinths, separating it from the viewer, and forcing on him a grotesque frog perspective (for which the statue was not designed).

Hint to the background thing : an ancient Greek group Tyrant Slayers, referring a real-life (514 B.C.) incident. The assassins are shown in explosive dynamic, raising to their immediate attack. Muchina translated that vehement impetus into her Rabochiy i Kolkhoznitsa (Worker and she-Kolkhoznik). That was 1936, in the mid of a decade of Stalin's terror gone full amoc. The kultura apparatchiki didn't know about the "Slayer"-reference. Years later, Muchina was somewhat coldly shoved aside.

Tyrannenmörder.(h=505).diptych.jpg
(in the ancient copies found to this day, the swords didn't stand the ravages of time)[/color]

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So are we aiming for verbose now? If so, please ignore this post comrades.

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ural wrote:So are we aiming for verbose now? If so, please ignore this post comrades.

That's just Genosse, he's so full of Party fervor he doesn't have them time to process the raw energy into something more refined. I honestly like it, finding the meaning of his writing is like going on a treasure hunt sometimes.

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Comrade Stierlitz wrote:
ural wrote:So are we aiming for verbose now? If so, please ignore this post comrades.

That's just Genosse, he's so full of Party fervor he doesn't have them time to process the raw energy into something more refined. I honestly like it, finding the meaning of his writing is like going on a treasure hunt sometimes.

Maybe someone should take the test.

Attention Span Test

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Biff Henderson wrote:
Comrade Stierlitz wrote:
ural wrote:So are we aiming for verbose now? If so, please ignore this post comrades.

That's just Genosse, he's so full of Party fervor he doesn't have them time to process the raw energy into something more refined. I honestly like it, finding the meaning of his writing is like going on a treasure hunt sometimes.

Maybe someone should take the test.

Attention Span Test

I took the test - why? I don't recall. But it doesn't matter - probably... Anyway, I enjoy reading Comrade Dummkopf's rather unusual scribblings. In this, (and precious little else) I agree with TPC's own version of Emily Post, - Comrade Stierlitz.

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.
huh.
First : Trump is a contra-symmetric HopeyChangey (here), now this :

US.2016.04.27.Ram.election-2016.Rep.Trump.(600).jpg
T : Et tu, Brute Michael, contra me ?
So, T seems nominee (except a Moon-sized asteroid hits Gaia, within < 60 days). And, of course, for D it's H (except Coughus letabilis or FBI/DOJ, swinging ice pick).

< serious-ON >

From far away, across the Big Pond :

(a) debate : stupid, incompetent, repulsive and 120% scripted that H is, yet cunning, ruthless, half-assed-deft and 120% MSM-Super-PAC(K) supported (plus a Chappaqua-based safe, inside it a lil' dirty T-dossier), Herself might come out "believed" the "winner" ; must not necessarily derail T, au contraire : might generate additional votes, if orchestrated "make believe" is too brazen.
(b) election : my hope = accumulated votes for T strike out TE, The Empress.

If (b), then :

(1) in work with Congress, T will likely be (very?) good - a natural negotiator talent, and cocksure better than Hop (simple : can't be worse than a know-nothing yet smug know-better-than-anybody XXXXXL narcissist)
(2) my fears* :
(2.1) economy : will certainly improve with T ( fear : at cost of even more cronyism ).
(2.2) foreign affairs : mayyyyybe T ist Ronaldus 2.0 ( fear : T acting in loose cannon mode ).
(2.3) domestic affairs : can T, given massive support by "America again" KnuckleDraggers** push back lefty-generated cultural rot, not least Big Statism ? expect so ( fear : the rot-thing becoming secondary "issue", and "energy-2016" squandered ).

* have mercy, potential pitchforks - me just a know-nothin' Kraut, ok ?
** recall (just in case) : KnuckleDragger is (my) most sympatico term for the "hard-leftwise downtrodden" ; in Amiland their anger once again observable and articulated.

Conclusio : May I be dead wrong about said fears.

< serious-OFF >


PROG OUT :

FANS AROUND THE GENIUS RAMIREZ, UNITE !


(see e. g. Ramirez)

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NeverTrump.jpg
We're not quite sure why we're upset, but...help me out here, how do I say it - CAPTION THIS

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Biff Henderson wrote:
NeverTrump.jpg
We're not quite sure why we're upset, but...help me out here, how do I say it - CAPTION THIS

Upon achieving a level of drunkenness inciting the ingestion and immediate expulsion of a wad of cash money, Donald Trump was gifted a magic marker mustache by a Chef, a Collective Farmer, and Two Glorious Red Army Soldiers.

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.
Trumphobia getting Momentum ?

(from here via MRC)

CND.US.2016.05.12.Trumphobia.(Maple Match links Canadians looking for love with single Americans fleeing Trump).jpg

CND.US.2016.05.12.Trumphobia.(Maple Match links Canadians looking for love with single Americans fleeing Trump).trend.jpg
(google)

Could this become T's greatest life-time achievement ?
ya know - like, make the ProgTribe core get outta here ?

And consider your right-now-stated new project :
get a Ph.D. in Phobic Studies, Thesis : Trumphobia is Actually Melaninophobia,
the Phobic Melanin Factor being determined as within the orange part of Visible Light Spectrum.

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Genosse Dummkopf wrote:.
Trumphobia getting Momentum ?

(from here via MRC)

CND.US.2016.05.12.Trumphobia.(Maple Match links Canadians looking for love with single Americans fleeing Trump).jpg

CND.US.2016.05.12.Trumphobia.(Maple Match links Canadians looking for love with single Americans fleeing Trump).trend.jpg
(google)

Could this become T's greatest life-time achievement ?
ya know - like, make the ProgTribe core get outta here ?

And consider your right-now-stated new project :
get a Ph.D. in Phobic Studies, Thesis : Trumphobia is Actually Melaninophobia,
the Phobic Melanin Factor being determined as within the orange part of Visible Light Spectrum.

[OFF]

"Unfathomable Horror"!? Clearly these people have never heard of Concentration Camps, the Rape of Nanking, or 1984 or Brave New World. And I'm not surprised, if they knew any history they wouldn't be on that website in the first place.

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Comrade Stierlitz wrote:... Clearly these people have never heard of Concentration Camps, the Rape of Nanking, or 1984 or Brave New World. ...
Or, kinda worse even - it could be, they actually heard of all this, videlicet :

- Concentration Camps : Trump swore to God, he will build a yuuuge CCamp ( Yellowstone ? Area 51 ?? St. Petersburg, FL ??? )

- yeah, Nanking, TX : that was awwwwwfull, but Trump will do the same, only yet awwwwwfuller, and coast-to-coast, and (yikes!) himself, personally !

- 1984 : yup, was an exquisite year for Bordeaux... will never return... for one, b/c of Klimate™, and next : b/c starting Jan. 20, 2017, only TRUMP-wines will be permitted (worldwide!).

- BNW : yep, Trump will - like the Smirking Chimp - use remote controls to steer islamic kamikazes in dirigibles right into the Top 100 of Amiland's Favorite Architecture (TRUMP Tower excluded, of course).

[OFF]

OTOH, with remainders of common sense between ears, I assume the MapleMatch-thingy to be more a (good natured?) hoax than anything else. But, lil' dummkopf me, whad do I know ?


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Breitbart, [url=http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/05/26/obama-world-rattled-donald-trump/][color=#999999]here[/color][/url] wrote:During a press conference in Japan, [highlight=#ffff00]Obama admitted[/highlight] that world leaders are “surprised” and “rattled” by the rise of Trump.

“I think it's fair to say that they are surprised by the Republican nominee. They are not sure how seriously to take some of his pronouncements, but they're rattled by him, and for good reason,” he said. “Because a lot of the proposals that he's made Display either [highlight=#ffff00]ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude or an interest in getting tweets and headlines[/highlight] instead of actually thinking through what it is that is required to [highlight=#e8e8e8]keep America safe and secure and prosperous and what is required to keep the world on an even keel[/highlight].”
Comrades, shouldn't we petition for a third term of The Messiah ? Didn't he slow the Rise Of The Oceans ? Didn't He Heal The Planet ? Didn't He Unite, like, The Solar System, Our Galaxis ? Denukularized Gaia ? And didn't He keep America safe and secure and prosperous and even keel, near over ? While Trump will make all dzis kaputt ?

Me a Kraut, I warn you : vee haf dzis wort in KrautSpeak - trampeln ( pron. trumpaln ), which means to trample ! Sou, it's even in dse veri name of dse Trump - trample and trample and trample, like in dse Elephant !

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Red Square wrote:The author of the piece below just sent me this:

Why an Educated, Professional Iranian-American Woman Supports Donald Trump

Soheyla Kovach is a managing member of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent operation that publishes the manufactured home industry's two leading trade publications; public focused https://www.ManufacturedHomeLivingNews.com, and professional/investor focused https://www.MHProNews.com.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/9387350
There is a heartwarming followup to Soheyla's story. She is now a U.S. citizen and this week, she cast her first vote for Trump-Pence and down ballot candidates who support him.

THE LEDGER: Today's letters to the editor (Oct. 25, 2020)

Vote for those who support the 'America First' agenda

I'm a European university-educated woman from Tehran. I became a U.S. citizen in 2019. I love America and my homeland's amazing culture. In the 1970s, after years of agitation and empty promises later proven false, Iran fell to radicals following pledges of free money, utilities, etc. Radicals told lies straight from Hell.

I'm concerned similar lies repeatedly told in America deceive millions.

What happens if enough Americans vote for cloaked or openly socialist candidates on Nov. 3? Iran or Venezuela, Cuba, China and Vietnam are countries where millions tragically believed propaganda. You risk losing your liberties, as they did.

Sen. Bernie Sanders is openly socialist. He's backing Joe Biden, as are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democratic socialists. No matter how much some might disagree with President Donald Trump's personality or style, he's a proven anti-socialist.

Communist China lied, WHO lied, more than 200,000 Americans and more than 1 million people globally died. President Trump survived COVID-19. He's a proven leader pre-pandemic. He's cheerleading America's recovery too.

My first vote will be for President Trump. It's easy to vote Trump-Pence and those in Congress or state house races supporting their “America First” agenda. The alternative is losing your liberties. Please don't buy the lies.

Soheyla Kovach, Poinciana


 
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