The Goat Pen

hedge wrote:"Utah has one of the lowest illegitimacy rates in the country
Utah has one of the highest, if not the highest percentage of white population
Their high school drop-out rate is low
LDS tend to be extremely active in getting involved in the PTA/PTO and helicoptering their children in school
And unlike Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Florida, or California, they don't have to spend nearly as much on ESL"

So basically you want the rest of the country to be more like Utah. Um, no thanks...

"I was educated in the state that (overall) performs #1 in the country from an education standpoint"

I guess that makes your failure all the more egregious...

aTm wrote:If they're too smart they'll start questioning the religion. You want them just to where the ceiling is capped so that the elite all become best selling sci-fi or fantasy authors.

eCat wrote:

hedge wrote:"Utah has one of the lowest illegitimacy rates in the country
Utah has one of the highest, if not the highest percentage of white population
Their high school drop-out rate is low
LDS tend to be extremely active in getting involved in the PTA/PTO and helicoptering their children in school
And unlike Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Florida, or California, they don't have to spend nearly as much on ESL"

So basically you want the rest of the country to be more like Utah. Um, no thanks...

"I was educated in the state that (overall) performs #1 in the country from an education standpoint"

I guess that makes your failure all the more egregious...

Based on his stats in regards to Utah they should be much higher in ACT scores as they have fewer barriers to educating their children.

eCat wrote:

hedge wrote:"They want a wrecking ball, they want people in Washington to feel the pain - and they aren't particularly concerned about the people that benefit from policies or an agenda from previous administrations."

And you wonder why people are rioting...

no I'm not

The difference between a protestor and rioter however is the police should be able to beat the shit out of a rioter.

innocentbystander wrote:Someone reads Stephanie Meyer novels

aTm wrote:If they're too smart they'll start questioning the religion. You want them just to where the ceiling is capped so that the elite all become best selling sci-fi or fantasy authors.

aTm wrote:

innocentbystander wrote:Someone reads Stephanie Meyer novels

No, but she is an example of what I'm talking about. There is also Brandon Sanderson, Orson Scott Card, Tracy Hickman, Brandon Mull among others.

hedge wrote:" Going to my grandparents' farm in Georgia is no better. Dark as shit. Bugs everywhere. Cars covered in pollen..."

Brook reports from Georgia:

[youtube]MP8USm7sABI[/youtube]

eCat wrote:this all boils down to people that wanted status quo - they may not have been particularly excited about everything but they were happy with the general direction - that doesn't necessarily fall along party lines. Some of the more extreme Bernie factions felt they aligned more closely with Trump than Hillary, and I'm certain there were a fair number of moderate conservative so concerned with the extremism of Trump that they felt safer with Hillary.

But for those that weren't happy with status quo, they were intent on real change - not some political slogan (although MAGA apparently struck a nerve). For the conservatives, they branded the GOP mainliners as GOPe - establishment who basically were the type like Marco Rubio who ran on a Tea Party ticket and the moment he got to Washington, he turned into the old guard. People who voted for Trump saw Washington as a single party who were growing more and more blatant about their hypocrisy of supposedly representing their voters but never enacting any change or progress forward.

Setting aside the Bernie people because I don't feel I can speak for them, the tea party people , the millennials who identify with the Alt-Right, the Reagan democrats and blue collar guys - they all have been doing a slow burn since John McCain was chosen - and McCain , in no surprise to anyone wanted a lifelong Democrat as his V.P. choice until the party told them they would revolt. Then you get the father of Obamacare in Mitt Romney running and he's just as big of an insult to them as McCain. Then you have Cantor and Boehner who are talking about a mandate from the voters and they're going to give Obama whatever he wants. McConnell was the only guy of the old guard - and he is a complete slimeball - but he understood enough and was in a position to say I"m not going to work with this president - and that gave him barely enough credibility with the voters to win re-election. He shouldn't have because he is a complete son of a bitch but he did and I fault Kentucky voters for doing it.

I can remember 20 years ago polls in regards to immigration showed that 70% of Americans wanted a secure border and stopping the flow of immigration from Mexico - but over time the polling numbers changed - not the sentiment of the people - and those people have been ignored - Bush was a amnesty guy and had to back off facing a revolt from within the party.The issue is in regards to immigration, its a huge lie to say that Americans on the whole want amnesty or whatever - its just that in 20 years of inaction, they want something so softening their positions and being asked "do you really think we can deport 20 million people" became inevitable, not because they wanted to soften but they were ignored - because the GOPe wants to keep flooding the market with cheap labor and the Democrats want a life line of voters.

So my point in all of this is - for those of you that keep losing your shit over everything that Trump says or does - and expect the Trump people to suddenly wake up and agree with you, its not going to happen in the near future. The reason why is because Trump moves the needle. Yea, he says crazy shit, he exaggerates, he has an ego that even by D.C. standards is out of control but for the past 20 years our options have been people that were essentially Democrats of the JFK/Lyndon B. Johnson era saying they are republicans- they are conservative.

The voters don't care because to he is the *only* and I mean only person that has gone in there and said, this is what the people who voted me in want and this is what we're going to do. And I'm going forward on this without a lot of hand holding, meetings or procrastination. I may lose in court, I may get sued, I may piss off a bunch of people, but I'm doing what I'd say I'd do with the support of my voters.

in the words of Obama which I think we all knew would come back to haunt him - Elections have consequences (and consequently his justification for his slew of executive orders, funny how Obama supporters have suddenly taken an interest in the abuse of power in the executive branch now isn't it?), - now the people that vote for Trump want revenge, they want their pound of flesh - and they make no distinction in Democrat or GOP - as they feel both have failed them.

When your mindset is like that, you're not really going to give a shit about the nuance or execution. They want a wrecking ball, they want people in Washington to feel the pain - and they aren't particularly concerned about the people that benefit from policies or an agenda from previous administrations. That sounds harsh but they feel like they've been ignored while the country moved an agenda they didn't support forward without any negotiation or sympathy for their position. They offer none in return thru Trump - and when their president is talking about putting America First - and by implication that all Americans will prosper from that - they don't have any particular desire to dig any deeper for validation in being OK with their support or lack of empathy.

bluetick wrote:So Trump yesterday stands at the mics and says the news media isn't reporting the fact that America's murder rate is the highest in 47 years. Naturally the usual firestorm erupted because that's so false that it's mind-numbing.

Somebody has to get to this guy and remind him that the campaign is over and that he can't make up these wild lies and run off
to the next town gathering of cross-eyed loyalists. That he's now stuck in the WH and he basically is the employee of 360 million Americans...and this crap doesn't cut it anymore.

I just don't know if people realized how much Washington can impact their worlds

eCat wrote:

I just don't know if people realized how much Washington can impact their worlds

I'm pretty sure that's exactly why they voted for Trump

Bklyn wrote:Well, the facts will bear it all out. Neither of us can manipulate results. There will be an opportunity to tally up the score in about 18 - 30 months. I just don't see things playing out the way these constituents are hoping for.

eCat wrote:

Bklyn wrote:Well, the facts will bear it all out. Neither of us can manipulate results. There will be an opportunity to tally up the score in about 18 - 30 months. I just don't see things playing out the way these constituents are hoping for.

The thing is though, no matter what Trump does, you and people that feel the way you do will brand his presidency a failure. You've already branded his presidency a failure by the fact he was elected. There is no "give him a chance" mentality.

The people I'm talking about are so fed up they were willing to take the chance, even if the risk of success is low, not to mention what their definition of success will be. Many of them are in a state of mind that dismantling much of the government and let the chips fall where they may is the best solution, even if a portion results in a negative impact to their lives. They want a recalibration in the way the United States is moving forward. If that means taking a step back, or several steps back on progress in the eyes of the left, they have no problem in that - primarily because the move forward didn't include them anyways.

Certainly the fickle of them will more than likely be up in arms in 18 months but that doesn't mean they won't vote to put another politician in office that speaks to them and has the autonomy to buck Washington D.C.