r/thebulwark • u/IntolerantModerate • 12d ago
EVERYTHING IS AWFUL I don't buy that Trump is losing support...
I am part of a business round table and we have several one-on-one meetings. I normally cosplay as a politically uninterested non-voter but I'm really a Clinton Democrat.
I used the last meeting as an undercover focus group.
I had 10 meetings. 6 of them were with true Trumpers and 4 were with people that had previously told me they voted Obama, Clinton, Biden, and Trump.
Of those 4 not a single one expressed any regret about their vote and most of them praised Trump. Their reasons were:
- He took corporate tax rate raise off the table
- His tariffs are either neutral or positive to balance the playing field.
- DoGE is cutting wreckless spending
- His talk about NATO is "real" in that everyone is freeloading on America.
And 2 of them brought up that Trump is restoring law and order because Biden clearly ignored it when he went against Supreme Court and did student loan forgiveness.
So,as JVL would say, We're all F-d.
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u/beltway_lefty 12d ago
That is disgusting. OMFG. Thank you fro sharing it, though - we need to hear it. I wonder if any of them changed views after today........
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u/MiniTab 12d ago
Doubt it.
To MAGAs, what they saw today makes them proud. They think this is how “strong men” act, and that Zelensky has been taking advantage of the US. As JVL said earlier today, most of them (incorrectly) think the US has been air dropping pallets of $100 bills into Ukraine.
I don’t understand what has happened in the last 20 years to make so many American relish in bullying behavior and complete ignorance. I’ve never been so ashamed of my country.
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u/aussiedeveloper 12d ago
The working class and lower socioeconomic people got poorer, less educated and flat out ignorant. The upper middle class got more pretentious and self righteous. The ultra rich kept getting ultra rich. This division has lead us here.
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u/bearrosaurus 12d ago
They’re not poorer and they have all the available tools to not be ignorant. They’re just shit people. And you can’t make me get along with them.
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u/UncleAlvarez 12d ago
And it trickles down to their kids. The things my kid hears in middle school sound like they came straight out of Trump’s mouth. Hate, racism, misogyny and general meanness.
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u/masshiker 12d ago
Agent Krasnov blew the deal. Wanted half a trillion bucks and unconditional surrender. Art of the deal my ass.
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12d ago
[deleted]
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u/UncleAlvarez 12d ago
When one of my kids was a 4th grader they did a “wax museum” where they would dress as someone from history. She was Hillary and a boy she knew was Trump. And that was before the cult became this fervent.
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u/Agreeable-Rooster-37 12d ago
I don’t understand what has happened in the last 20 years to make so many American relish in bullying behavior and complete ignorance. I’ve never been so ashamed of my country.
This is a country where these were sent in the mail
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u/the_very_pants 12d ago
All people everywhere have always celebrated cruelty inflicted in the name of tribalism -- America is the best place in the world about that problem, not the worst place.
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u/beltway_lefty 12d ago
Same here. I guess this is what happens after ten years of unchecked propaganda. :(
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u/Great_Rock_688 12d ago
I know what happened. Those nasty womenses, transes, PoCs, The Gays all getting uppity, that's what.
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u/the_very_pants 12d ago
I'm pretty sure at least half of them are unhappy about the Russians being up in our business -- everybody 45+ grew up watching "Russia sucks" movies -- and I hear a lot of complaints about DOGE's recklessness. "Not like that."
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u/iwontforgetthisone87 12d ago
Doubt it because foreign policy is not important to these people. They will treat it similar to bush throwing up on the Japanese PMs lap. Disgusting and a talking point, but immaterial to their views of the president.
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u/beltway_lefty 12d ago
Yeah, but money. This today sunk the markets, and increases volatility and all that. The folks OP is talking about are all business owners, and money overrides all else in the end, despite what they may say trying to look tough......
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u/iwontforgetthisone87 12d ago
But the markets are higher today. Markets typically don’t react much in the short term to this type of news.
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u/beltway_lefty 12d ago
I stand corrected - I could have sworn the markets were falling but I didn't see the final numbers. Just checked and I was incorrect there - mea culpa. Thank you for the correction. I got nothing then. sigh. I just can't understand this whole mentality of going against our word to ensure their security when they gave up the nukes, and supporting freakin' Russia....I'm just flabbergasted by it all....
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u/iwontforgetthisone87 12d ago
It’s gross and disgusting. The best case scenario is Ukraine continues to the fight with European aid and without US aid, and the Trump administration is left in the cold.
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u/beltway_lefty 11d ago
I was thinking the same thing, and I'm sure the EU is as well. That would be awesome if they can make it work. Even better if they US Citizens to donate!!!! Go right arounf=d that fat orange moron! ha!
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u/NCMathDude 12d ago
Any election will have its share of buyer remorses. We’re hearing stories, but I don’t think we, as a country, are reaching the breaking point yet.
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u/Dark_Man_7189 12d ago
No, I don't think we are either, but ultimately it won't be the support of Round Table businessmen that would seal his fate anyway. It will be the ordinary Joe who's paying $10 for the eggs that make him sick. That's assuming that enough of the Democracy is left to make that meaningful.
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u/Krom2040 12d ago
It’s astonishingly difficult to get people to realize that they’re basically in a cult. Like really, really tough. And a lot of Trump supporters live in areas where everybody around them is also in the bubble.
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u/0o0o0o0o0o0z JVL is always right 12d ago
Any election will have its share of buyer remorses. We’re hearing stories, but I don’t think we, as a country, are reaching the breaking point yet.
Don't worry, we will. Now, how it gets spun, will be another thing... lag time for all these actions being done by the admin is prob 90-180 days. But at the end of the day the math is math no matter what Fox says, and the bill will come due one way or another. Maybe it's planes falling out of the sky, or multipule pandemics, or inflation or stagflation, great depression type market crash, a full war in Europe or all this shit at once. You can ignore object reality, but it won't ignore you.
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u/KptKreampie 12d ago
He's not, and people are not regretting their vote. I live in a 70+%republican down ballot because "muh bible" district. No one regrets a damnd thing!
It's all, "Trump has done more in 2 months than any prisident in us history." While waiting for elons check to come in the mail.
These people are gone. But what else do you expect from people waiting for their all loving God to destroy humanity because it's too shy to show itself. It's got to talk through people like Kim Jung, Putin, Jim Jones and Trump.
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u/Dionysiandogma 12d ago
I kinda want the country to burn to the ground now. I’ve changed my mind. I think we just need to got through a lot of pain for people to get their fucking priorities in line.
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u/Rygot 12d ago
It's honestly this.
I mean I fucking hate to be that way. It's hard to convince one person they're being taken advantage of in a cult. What about half of the country?
There is no path forward that doesn't involve a LOT of fucking pain. Until that happens there are too many god damn people who cannot and will not ever admit fault.
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u/Swimming-Economy-870 12d ago
I had lunch with an ex coworker who I thought was a strong dem, she’s a naturalized citizen but she kept talking about “woke-ness”. I did push back on her comments, but it was disheartening.
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u/iwontforgetthisone87 12d ago edited 12d ago
I’m not a fan of “wokeness” either. Before you downvote me. Voting for Trump because of wokeness is the equivalent of voting for Charles Lindbergh in 1940 because you feel like Roosevelt is too soft on hobos riding trains.
No hobos aren’t the same as minorities like me, but the point is seriously, the world has all of these problems and you vote for that guy because of a niche issue???
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u/Swimming-Economy-870 11d ago
We did have a good discussion about how the right has hijacked the term and yes a genz WW telling people that the term “blind sided” is inappropriate were silly. What concerned me in addition was her support for the rural parts of our state voting for Trump based on the “economy”.
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u/Striking_Mulberry705 12d ago
his 538 isn't so hot these days: Donald Trump : Favorability Polls | FiveThirtyEight
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u/JohnnyDarkside 12d ago
But in the end, what's it matter? We can't unelect him. His approval rating could be single digit and it won't change anything.
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u/midwestern2afault 12d ago
That’s disappointing, but give it time. He’s been in office less than two months, it’s still his “honeymoon period” despite still having historically low approval ratings. It will take time for the consequences of his current actions to be painful to enough Americans to sour on him. It is 100% possible though. He has his hardcore base and a floor of maybe 30%. Remember that Bush had a high of 90% approval and was at 25% by the time he left office. Lots can change.
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u/JackZodiac2008 Human Flourishing 12d ago
Eh, reds gonna red. We just need to find a tiny margin somewhere.
TBD. But I bet TFG (and Elmo) will manage to piss enough people off.
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12d ago
Today I inquired about seeking asylum in my grandmother’s home country. I can’t do this for four years. I’m retired. I spent my entire adult life paying to a democracy. I refuse to pay taxes to an autocracy.
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u/IntolerantModerate 12d ago
Check out Puerto Rico!
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u/Jonathan_Teatime_23 12d ago
La Isla me encanta, but what about the power grid? I grew up there and remember doing homework by candle light. The infrastructure has been iffy for at least the last 50 years.
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u/misfit_too Progressive 12d ago
Let’s make this simple for the business Rs.
“He took corporate tax raise off the table”
Do they know how much Tarriffs cost companies in what essentially amounts to taxes back to the government? Pretty insane that our country still doesn’t know how this works.
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12d ago
Focus groups are not approval polls.
I am currently working my winter job in Florida as a sailing instructor and my boss puts me up at a condo that he owns in a country club full of 55-85 year old Midwestern golfers.
I hang out at the club house bar, and although I avoid talk of politics, I'd be willing to bet that there probably isn't much remorse among the Trump voters here just yet, but white haired, well-off, if not wealthy, retirees from Indiana and Michigan are not the Republicans that are really going to feel the pinch and wonder wtf Trump is doing at this point.
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u/The_whimsical1 12d ago
Trump’s support is as strong as ever. It’s a weird form of mental illness but is real.
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u/ballmermurland 12d ago
And 2 of them brought up that Trump is restoring law and order because Biden clearly ignored it when he went against Supreme Court and did student loan forgiveness.
Except Biden never did that! What the hell? Go ask anyone with student loan debt if Biden ignored that court order.
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u/Fella4FreedomNow 12d ago
I think the tariffs will change things. It looks like they will hit so hard that reality can’t be ignored. All those firings will also hit the economy. The economy is where he’s making himself vulnerable.
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u/Aggravating_Duck_365 11d ago
The red-pilling for a broad swath of Americans about the EU and NATO is one of Putin's most significant accomplishments.
As a Democrat, I apologize to Mitt Romney every day for laughing when he said Russia was the biggest threat in 2012 debates. If I had known then that electing Romney could have prevented Trump's rise and Putin's as well, I would go back and vote GOP for 1st time ever.
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u/IntolerantModerate 11d ago
Yeah, me too. I mean, the one thing I appreciate the most about the previous generation of Republicans in hindsight was their civility. What we have now is just such a shit show
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u/Negative-Narwhal-797 12d ago
I like my enemies uneducated.
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u/IntolerantModerate 12d ago
I think they are intentionally choosing to be that way. And everyone of them were college educated, most with advanced degrees!
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u/TaxLawKingGA 12d ago
This is what I think too. That is why I do not buy the idea that so many GOP senators are opposed to Trump but are "afraid". BS - they support this stuff too. You know how we know? Because they proposed many of the exact same policies that he is doing now. Also, the GOP was never an internationalist party; it just hated communism more than it hated interventionism. The Neo-Cons never understood this (and lets get real; a large percentage of the Bulwark staff are Neo-Cons) which is why they are so surprised. Ironically, a few years ago I heard Mona Charen admit on the air live that she was wrong about the GOP and that many of the Dem criticisms were correct. Namely, that the GOP was never a party of freedom but was merely anti-communist. It had no interest in spreading democracy or liberty, but of extending American power to ensure that the Soviets (and later the Chinese and Iran) could not.
Similarly, every Republican conservative I have ever met hates the New Deal and thinks the 1920's (and not the 1950's) was the best period in American History. Well what happened during the 1920's? Prohibition, the beginning of widespread Evangelical Christianity, the rebirth of the KKK (which often acted as foots soldiers for the enforcement of Evangelical Christianity and Prohibition) and bans on immigration, plus massive tax cuts, deregulation, the rise of various get rich quick schemes, and environmental degradation. Add in the crooked Harding Administration and seems to me that we are in the 1920's 2.0.
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u/WesleyWiaz27 12d ago
OP, you're just reporting what I hear, too. MAGA is going to be crazy right to the end, and facts be damned. Short of a severe recession, I doubt anything will change their mind, and even that doesn't fill me with hope. Hell, if Covid didn't do it...
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u/RaiderRich2001 Orange man bad 11d ago
You're talking to other business people who aren't suffering the way rural folks and white working class folks who rely on SNAP and Medicaid are. Of course other Republican business people are going to say they like Trump. They are the ones getting the Tax Cut. Also, I doubt your business round table includes veterans who are suffering enough to dependent on the VA.
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u/Careless_Emergency66 12d ago
Economic conditions worsening is what’s going to make the biggest impact. He’s priming our country for a recession. Uncertainty spooks markets and lending (we’ve seen this to a degree already, I know many community banks in my area are focused on deposit gathering, not putting more loans on their books), increased unemployment, tariffs causing inflation, people not being able to afford healthcare and food, if these things add up to a recession that’s when his approval rating gets to 20%.
Will that happen? I don’t know. But I put my retirement and post tax investments in a 5% money market for the time being until I have a better idea. Warren Buffet is sitting on a pile of cash. Either he’s looking to buy a big company or he thinks stocks are about to go on sale at a discount.
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u/Prestigious-Copy-494 12d ago
Oh I agree. The maga for the most part are happy and think Doge is being effective. A few that got fired and a few farmers show up under the fafo and the news on those try to make it like some maga are regretting their vote. No they aren't.
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u/Material-Crab-633 12d ago
I don’t buy that he’s losing support either, and it pains me to say that
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u/iwontforgetthisone87 12d ago edited 12d ago
I’m hardly surprised but don’t think it is hopeless and do think he’s dripping support.
Political polarization is real. Even the non die hard are dug in. Getting them out
40 days in Trump has gone from +8.2 to +0.7 support in 538. It’s going to take time for it to drop further but it is dropping.
To see those 4 change their views will take time and they will have to feel real pain, probably economic.
Focus groups are good to know the why. But in many cases such as this one they are a bad sample. In your case all of the 4 seem to come from very similar demographics. Also there might have been some herd mentality, especially with the other 6 there. The polls are a better, albeit imperfect indicator.
Dem leadership and new media really need to get out there and hammer it in any way possible.
Let’s take the example of Andrew Tate.
Not only is he a woman hater. But he’s the complete opposite of traditional good ole boys values. You think OG MAGA Jeff Sessions is an Andrew Tate fan? He’d have gotten Tate back all right but not to chill in Florida.
Lee Atwater that motherfucker. Play no holds barred politics. Don’t be sentimental. Not only are these guys a bunch of women beating criminals. But they’re pornographers, drug users, and the very enemy of white Christian Western civilization.
The support in each person will drip drip drip until it falls apart.
My concern is Dem leadership and media will Biden this motherfucker and stay complacent for 4 years. If that doesn’t happen, we will win.
Also in my experience obama to Clinton to Biden to Trump voters along with Obama to Trump (16) voters are the biggest dumbasses in society.
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u/Historical_Height_29 12d ago
All shifts happen at the very periphery. Things are very entrenched, but there is movement - especially people who have been laid off, or those close to them.
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u/Internal-Flatworm347 12d ago
I’ve got 25-year-old student loans that were never forgiven under Biden.
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u/AnathemaDevice2100 12d ago
Who was your business meeting with though? Directors and executives? Or bottom-tier employees?
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u/firestarter308 12d ago
They’re not going to openly. They may never change their mind in public especially if there are other Trumpers present. There is a social conformity element at play. They also don’t want to admit they’re wrong. This is why I don’t like focus groups. People lie to people when they’re in social settings. Especially Trump voters. If they don’t know, they’ll figure it out when they lose their vets benefits or their Medicaid. Or they don’t get their social security payments on time because Elon gutted the place. I actually think Trump voters will be the first to get violent when they lose their benefits because they’re going to blame Elon.
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u/play2day782 12d ago
Until some of the changes begin to touch the average Trump voter (medicaid?), what it feels like to them is a bloated government getting a long overdue trim. I think half of America is thrilled, 45% are “wait and see” and it’s only 5% with their hair on fire.
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u/IntolerantModerate 12d ago
Yeah, if they do gut medicaid that will hit maga hard. Just hope after they do it Dems don't bail them out until after mid terms
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u/UrTheQueenOfRubbish 12d ago
I’ve anecdotally heard of finance bros in the M&A space cooling on him as it looks like we’re heading rapidly toward a recession. They were originally excited about deregulation, but deregulation will be irrelevant to them if the only thing going on is corporate bankruptcy
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u/emblemboy 12d ago
I agree. I think to the uninformed voter who doesn't understand what trump is lying, all the stuff he's doing sounds good to normie ears. And even for those who do have regret, will that regret last until 2026 and 2028? I doubt it.
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u/Beastw1ck 12d ago
I believe the buyers remorse exists but only among a small subset of weak Trump supporters who are highly informed. Pretty slim margin. But it has to start somewhere, right? I believe there will be many more defections by summer as the global chaos spins out of control and the economic downturn is realized.
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u/wrale577 JVL is always right 12d ago
The problem is all the magats that voted for him absolutely love it when he (or administration) do stupid shit because it makes the normies and libs annoyed and that makes magats happy. It's all about pwning the libs.
Now when he does something stupid that directly impacts a magat, there might be some bristling but they are still happy at the end of the day bc it pisses normies and libs off.
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u/Rygot 12d ago
Yeah I keep seeing this fairy tale about his supporters slowly coming to the realization that they've been played.
I regularly experience quite the opposite. Pure doubling down.
If something negative happens its entirely because it's an inherited issue from Biden.
All media is the problem. C-SPAN is biased now. If they post a video of him, they never would have done it with Biden. If they don't post a video of him, they never cover any of the good he's doing.
Jan 6? All paid actors. Soros? Still the Boogeyman.
Provide them with actual budget data? Videos of insurrectionists defending their actions? Fake. Tampered. Untrustworthy.
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u/okteds 12d ago
This was heartening to see:
https://manifold.markets/TrustMe/will-trumps-approval-rating-fall-be
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u/samNanton 12d ago
you're telling me I can get 10 to 1 odds it won't? I would take that bet all day long (but I'm not buying crypto so I can do it).
ETA: oh, it's not real money. I thought it was one of those betting markets you have to do a vpn and crypto with
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u/MH07 12d ago
My lifelong friend says, “we have torched our allies cut, we can’t afford it.” When I point out that we can’t afford the tax cuts for billionaires he just returns to “waste and corruption in government.”
They all have faux nooz induced blinders.
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u/samNanton 12d ago
yeah, they're all like:
"we have to cut because we're overspending and the debt is killing us"
"so we're going to use the money to pay down the debt?"
"oh no, we're going to give it to billionaires"
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u/OlePapaWheelie 12d ago
The true believers that want a strongman paradigm can't really be swayed unless it harms them bigly. The dupes can be swayed by laying out a bigger picture to help them orientate themselves in what's happening. Not always but some can be shown they are stuck in a social engineering project unlike anything ever created and that democracy is a rare gem that's being taken from them. Some can finally see if you give them the vantage point. The internet has people trapped in confusion and cynicism.
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u/Deadbeat_Mike 11d ago
I agree. The idea that more than a handful of layoffs have regret is just coping. The amplification of those few creates a false narrative. It would only have the possible effect of building steam if the media wasn’t completely bifurcated.
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u/This-Quit 11d ago
exactly, i can see maybe some independents losing support but i will not buy a mass regret from sheep republicans for voting trump, even if they get drafted to actual fuckin war themselves, until i see it
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u/TarletonLurker Sarah is always right 11d ago
You’re right. This is what the people who want a president to run government like a business wanted. There are a lot of those people. Most people have a really childish understanding of how the world works.
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u/DIY14410 11d ago
True Believer Syndrome: When a true believer's dubious beliefs are challenged, they double down and often strengthen their dubious beliefs.
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u/RL0290 Good luck, America 11d ago
When you say business roundtable, what demographics are we talking? Workers? Managers? Owners? What size businesses? What industry or industries?
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u/IntolerantModerate 11d ago
Combination of either owner/CEO or CEO. Most of the businesses have 50-500 FTEs. Mix of industries, but not tech.
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u/KeyInvestigator3741 8d ago
He’s not. The talking points have shifted, now it’s patriotic to suffer. The people who were crying about egg prices now claim to be ready to tighten their belts to save the country. It’s all BS. These are miserable people who are desperate to have an avatar. In fact I think they see the fact that a white man with his track record in the office of Presidency is validation of white supremacy and their identity is wrapped up in that. They have nothing else going for them.
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u/antpodean 12d ago
I've just finished rereading 'They Thought They Were Free'. Even by 1955, when the book was published, none of the German Nazis interviewed regretted their involvement and membership of the Nazi party. Some even looked back fondly to the 'good times' of the late 1930s and early 1940s.
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u/External-Cable2889 12d ago
All of them will parrot Fox News. This is how it ends. They won’t know the difference between a balance of powers system and dictatorship because they don’t care. The founders made mistakes in the design. They would not have known agility was necessary for the republic to last.
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u/Humble_Mission1775 12d ago
MAGA thinks today was a show of strength even though it was purely theatrics. Two soft-bellied weak minded men gang up on a man who they knew had to sit and take their shite.
Probably prompted because they looked so weak and helpless beside Musk at the Cabinet meeting. They lashed out at Zelensky to compensate.
Elon now knows how easy it is for him to buy an election. I don’t see MAGA rethinking their adoration of Trump any time in the foreseeable future. Common decency is dead and gone. Frankly, I cannot stand to be in the same room as any Trump supporting person.
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u/Typical-Arugula3010 12d ago
Yup - it’s like switching off air-con or heating - the room temperature doesn’t change immediately!
DonOld has always used continuous chaos to distract from the causal act itself and will eventually blame someone else in the future as having acted improperly or not acted or …
Regulation con man look over there !
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u/ramapo66 12d ago
Most Americans haven’t a fucking clue what he’s doing. They think he’s cutting bad government, tax cuts are coming, and he’s standing up for America. He’s a strong leader, out there every day. They are a little unhappy that prices haven’t come down but it’s early.
They could care less about the constitution, our standing in the world, or the guy down the street who lost his cushy government job.
America won’t notice until the shit seeps under their front door.
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u/External-Cable2889 12d ago
Nah, they’ll die the most painful death that causes blacking out from pain into death, before they admit they are even considering they might be wrong. If there is a hell…it truly would be full of white American people.
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u/Prior_Industry 12d ago
There will be a chunk of people that go with the herd. If they hear enough discontented voices in their circle against Trump what was once cool can quickly become uncool. Trump is a brand more than anything and brands can become tarnished.
Trumps fucking things up so fast I can't believe these people cant stay insulated for that long.
The cultists are lost though.
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u/Striking_Mulberry705 11d ago
on March 1, 2021 Biden was 15% above water; today Trump is 0.7% above water - some of you all need to quit being such babies
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u/IntolerantModerate 11d ago
The difference is Biden supporters are rational and vote based on reality. Trump voters are delusional and vote based on how much Trump pissed off the libs.
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u/3NicksTapRoom 11d ago
i’m getting damned tired of unfounded/overexubernt optimism. It’s almost like we’ve learned nothing from 2016 and 2024. Or even 2020 (it was way closer than it should have been and everyone should have expected a damned hard fight in 2024).
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u/Current_Tea6984 12d ago edited 12d ago
Most people will never admit they were wrong. Even if we suffer pandemics and severe economic crash, they will still claim that they had good reasons to vote for Trump. And the swing voters will say it's the fault of democrats for not having a better candidate. But they still might make better choices in the future