Cognitive Assonance

When Donald Trump was elected, Big Thinkers with Bylines predicted that he – and the BREXIT movement often associated with him and his rise – would gut US markets.

Apparently not.

They also said that his intransigence would make American foreign policy even more fraught than it had been.

I’n not exactly “tired of winning” yet, but it’s interesting how turning foreign policy and defense over to grownups – people who’ve read enough non-intersectional history to know that coddling bullies just gives you more bullies – is slowly moving some of the world’s needles in the right direction.

 

 

66 thoughts on “Cognitive Assonance

  1. Dysfunction is being incapable of passing your chosen healthcare bill despite a 60 vote majority which inevitably lead to further chaos and practically no improvement in the shambolic state of the American healthcare system thereby creating a populist backlash.
    Dysfunction is being asleep at the wheel as the now Republican controlled state houses redrew lopsided congressional districts that gave the Republicans such an advantage in Congress that obstruction of any other major policy goals was guaranteed.
    Dysfunction is having to rule by executive orders, which can easily be overturned by a successor’s executive orders.
    Dysfunction is not listening to the backlash and running the establishment candidate in the year of the populist and losing an election to Donald Trump, the least popular presidential candidate in the history of the United States.
    Dysfunction is not being able to come up with a platform that rallies your base and therefore having to turn to the very same obstruction and demagoguery that you claim to abhor. Dysfunction is what the Democrats do for a living.

  2. Dysfunction is lying in every sentence, Shvonder-eTASS. Your comments are self-fisking and lies are obvious to anybody with half a brain, which is exactly one half more than what you have. You are indeed an insufferable troll.

  3. Dysfunction is also to draw imaginary lines in the sand, and then to let the whole world realize that you really don’t mean it, and to see clear cases of criminality in numerous departments and take no action to punish it.

    I don’t always like what Emery says, but hey, this part is fun!

  4. After listening the SOTU speech last evening, it’s increasingly apparent Democrats (with the exception of “Blue Dog” Democrats), are out of touch with where the country is headed.

  5. Out of touch with where the political middle of the country is headed, perhaps.

  6. I’m not so sure that I trust the American public to become pro-immigrant. I still think Trump’s stance on immigration was the most popular part of his 2016 campaign, and that the Democrats should avoid the subject as the mid-terms draw nearer. Nativism comes very naturally to not just the Trump base, but a lot of otherwise independent Americans. If immigration is the #1 issue for 2018 or 2020, that’s a win for Trump. He’s on much less certain ground with taxes, inequality, infrastructure, health care or foreign affairs. But I meet a lot of Americans who are with him on immigration. I disagree with Trump vigorously, but I don’t think most of America does. Democrats would be wise to pivot away from immigration as November draws near. Sentiment towards immigrants goes through cycles in this country, and we’re not on the pro-immigrant side of that cycle.

  7. Emery, you’re catching on. If it weren’t for the media making their case for them, American liberalism would have died in the 1970s, if not earlier.

  8. I don’t think it’s a good deal at all, but many if not most Americans seem to have convinced themselves that the rate of legal immigration is too high, and the number of illegal immigrants is damaging to the social fabric. Telling them that they’re stupid or deplorable is unlikely to change that. Because elections are more about politics than policy, Democrats would be wise to steer clear of immigration.

  9. Ah, there’s the Emery we know and love. We have tens of millions of illegal immigrants who can, due to their immigration status, be abused by their employers under the threat of deportation, and who are driving low-skilled wages down in a horrendous spiral, driving tens of millions more onto welfare programs, and Emery tells us that it’s no big deal. Just politics if someone would suggest we ought to get a handle on it, as if it’s not costing the nation hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

  10. and Emery tells us that it’s no big deal

    For Shvonder-eTASS, it is a feature, not a bug, bike. As sock puppets demonstrate time and time again in their posts, they are all about servitude and slavery and keeping the hoi polloi in the gutter and uninformed through lies, misinformation, misdirection and omission.

  11. It is telling that Paul Ryan almost introduced the president as “preventing Donald Trump”, then stumbled and said “presenting”.

  12. Ryan is a pragmatist more than an idealist. If he thinks Trump will help him, rather than hurt him, keep a majority in congress, Ryan will swallow his pride & support Trump. There isn’t really a percentage in it for him in opposing Trump, except — and this could be important — if it affects congressional election fundraising. Many of the GOP free marketeer donors despise Trump as much as they despise the democrats.
    Nancy Pelosi is a hard core ideologue on policy issues, but not on corruption issues.

  13. Which proves your mental acuity is below that of a child. I don’t have to diss you, Shvonder-eTASS, you do it yourself just fine. Carry on, trolls…

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