Someone needs to explain to me how this bunch of mobsters, crooks and low-life cretins

[malaise]

seized the government.
They will be stopped, but how the fuck did this happen and what will be done to ensure that it never happens again.

[elleng]

1. Part of it is here:

Almost half of Americans can't pay for their basic needs.

Four in 10 Americans are struggling to pay for their basic needs such as groceries or housing, a problem even middle-class households confront, according to a new study from the Urban Institute.

Despite the U.S. economy being near full employment, 39.4 percent of adults between 18 and 64 years old said they experienced at least one type of material hardship in 2017, according to the study, which surveyed more than 7,500 adults about whether they had trouble paying for housing, utilities, food or health care.

The findings surprised researchers at the Urban Institute, who had expected to find high levels of hardship among poor Americans but hadn't predicted so many middle-class families would also struggle to meet their basic needs.'>>>

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211064088

We'll keep heading down if we don't recognize this reality.

A major part of this means recognizing why there are so many 'trump' voters, who want/need change so hang with a carnival barker who promises change, notwithstanding 'near full employment.'

Pretending we're all fine just won't get it.

[Meadowoak]

3. We need to move in a more progressive direction, the Country needs and wants it.

Moderate Democrats aren't going to win.

[elleng]

4. Right.

[malaise]

7. I agree re policy failures, but why would they believe anything from proven crooks

I don't get that part.

[Dave in VA]

2. He

was a white male.

Not black or a woman.

And a whole lot of Russian help!

[2naSalit]

17. Ding Ding Ding!!!

Nailed it.

[peggysue2]

35. I second those dings!

This is not rocket science. Politics of fear, bigotry and resentment have proven successful. The GOP has turned it into an art form, appealing to the basest instincts of their electorate. The Trumper's populism was appealing because he promised everything without any knowledge or commitment and repeatedly pressed the hot buttons of race, sexism and the politics of victimhood, the Republican kind. And then, . . .

he had a lot of help from his friends, the odious sort--foreign and domestic. Our media is only just broaching the subject of mob influence. This will no doubt be a subject in the future. When the Trumpster House of Cards comes tumbling down.

The winds are already blowing.

[ismnotwasm]

18. Yup.

[NewJeffCT]

34. not to mention

a lot of help from the media - not just Fox News and talk radio, but a lot of the mainstream gave Trump far more credibility than he deserved.

[CatMor]

5. I ask myself that question every day ....

did it happen because the good people of the country don't bother to vote. Is there still that much racism here to allow it to have happened. How can people know trump is lieing about everything and anything but don't care. I am baffled by it all and do hope it can be stopped real soon.

[malaise]

8. Precisely

Why would they believe a proven pathological liar. Racism is a factor but I can't believe it 's that deep.
None of this makes sense.

[tulipsandroses]

6. Thats the surprising thing to me

Not that they let a racist SOB take over the White House. Nothing to see there. America has never healed its racial wounds. However, like I posted a few months ago, those of us that are from NY from the 80's and early 90's, knew Trump was a shady character and had ties to the mob. How did the Republicans let him get to the top of the ticket? How did the party of law and order let this happen? I shook my head in disbelief to think that a mob connected con man was running for president in 2016. I never thought he would actually win.

Its laughable when he starts talking about " They are bringing drugs and crime" - :"They" - being brown people. He sure had no problems when "They" were whites. - He supported folks connected to drugs back in the day. They were just not brown folks. Its sickening the Republican and religious right's support of him. But as long as they get the judges and deregulations they want. All is well I suppose, no mater how much he tries to destroy this country.

[malaise]

10. Clearly you know the monster

I still think there was massive fraud in the 2016 elections.
Truth will out.

[maxsolomon]

11. Republican boy scouts like McCain, Romney, and Comey are a dying breed

The lowlifes like Stone, Manafort, Kobach, or the grifter Evangelical Wing? They're legion now. The Birchers and Dominionists won the battle for the soul of the GOP.

[malaise]

14. I think you're right

Sadly but they too allowed a lot of their ideas to,fester.

Where does the Internet factor in this?

[maxsolomon]

20. The Internet is poisonous - and the GOP has used it as such

to supplement their Media strategy.

The NYT Tech writer on Real Time last Friday put it well: the Internet weaponizes everything: sex, friendship, politics. Trump certainly knows that, probably intuitively since he's a fucking idiot about "cyber" otherwise. He uses Twitter as a weapon.

[exboyfil]

29. Romney has sold his soul

He is no longer on any integrity list.

[maxsolomon]

9. 1, they conned the Republican voters

Who lept at the chance to indulge in an orgy of spite.

Once it was HRC v DJT, the 30 year, scientific, endlessly-funded effort to jerry-rig our elections did the rest. It didn't help that the HRC campaign held on to notions of comity and high-mindedness.

In the end, the only people who got conned are Republicans and low-information flibberdigibbets. That was enough.

[malaise]

12. Unless we find out the truth I will go to my grave still in a state of

Tuned incredulity.

I mean didn't they know that these were low-life crooks and mobsters? How can they be spiteful to the point of spiting themselves and destroying their own country?

[maxsolomon]

21. Spite is when you hurt yourself to hurt another.

They don't care that they're lowlifes and mobsters because they know it makes US unhappy, which is more important to them.

When the Truth comes out, they won't listen. They want to stay asleep. Aversion, self-centered fear, all that Buddha shit.

[onecaliberal]

13. Look at right wing twitter. Calling these people deplorable is being extremely diplomatic.

1/4 of this country are Sewer dwellers.

[malaise]

15. So the Internet and social media facilitated the spread

of hate and disinformation and/or they were gullible enough to buy the bullshit promoted by RWs and Russian bots

[onecaliberal]

16. No question. I blocked so many trolls during the 2016 primary. Not knowing they were Russian.

I could easily see they were stirring division and spreading hate. The vitriol against Secretary Clinton was off the hook on twitter. How those people were not banned is beyond me.

[tulipsandroses]

19. I think there are a lot of moving parts that set the stage. Including the media not doing its job

Not taking him as a serious candidate and vetting him.

A lot of the things that they are reporting about him now - were there for them to report during the campaign. They never seriously vetted him. They treated him as a "celebrity". Imagine if Barack Obama had all that dirt in his background when he was running for president? Morning Joe has turned against him now, but they gave him favorable coverage during the campaign. The media dropped the ball big time. Imagine if they had put his Russian dealings, numerous affairs, paying off women, some of those independent voters might not have voted for him.

There are many lessons to be learned from this debacle

[maxsolomon]

22. Because voters are separated into media bubbles (well, GOP voters are)

Any vetting done by the NYT, WaPo, MSNBC, CNN was roundly ignored. Maybe it wasn't done to your specifications, but it was done. Millions of Americans just simply will not listen, will not THINK. It's too hard; it takes too long, it's BORING.

I subscribe to the NYT, and I certainly knew exactly who Trump was. I never saw an episode of the Apprentice, and I knew he was a self-aggrandizing jackass decades ago. I knew who Manafort was. I knew who Wilbur Ross was.

The same can't be said for the average rural/exurban/suburban White voter, apparently, who bought the lie they saw on NBC for 8 pointless seasons.

Trump is a garrulous Con Man with money and an intuitive grasp of Television and Twitter. The RW media is in the business of conning America. It was a match made in heaven.

[tulipsandroses]

24. I agree with you that people are separated into their own media bubbles

However,
I don't recall the wall to wall coverage of Trump's misdeeds back then. Not the way it is now. Perhaps, I should have worded my thoughts more precisely. Trump did not get the wall to wall coverage he deserved to sound the alarms necessary to alert independent voters to how much of a danger he is. That is what should have been happening.

The media should have been sounding the alarms, the way they are now. Instead, what we got was the false equivalency about Hillary's emails and other crap about Hillary. As if both candidates were on the same level. Hillary was far more criticized. So no. The media did not do a very good job of vetting him. Media execs, thought he was good for ratings. I recall- Andrea Mitchell constantly talking about Hillary's emails, so even MSNBC drank the Kool Aid - of trying to be fair and balanced. Andrea, has since said, she and other media personnel were complicit in shifting the conversation.

Die hard Trump supporters will always be there. It wouldn't have mattered to them. I am speaking about how covering him differently might have made a difference for the independents. The ones that truly believed that Donald Trump would somehow make a difference. The ones that now are turned off by his cruel nature of ripping children out of mother's arms.
I think a really good example is Joe Scarborough, on MSNBC - a republican, we know - is now against him, but was an ardent supporter in the beginning. I am sure many people watched his show and thought, oh well if Joe supports him, he must be alright.

Although, he's not a serious journalist. I think it really helped " normalized" him, when he went on Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Fallon playfully ruffled his hair, toupee, whatever that thing is and gave him a human like quality.

[maxsolomon]

25. so, you mean TV when you mean "The Media".

I'll concede that - they normalized his transgressions.

The information was out there, though. TRMS certainly sounded the alarm.

I'm not sure "independents" (AKA coy republicans) or "low-information voters" (AKA flibberdigibbets) paid much attention to either. If they only watched the debates, that should have been enough.

[tulipsandroses]

36. Yes, I was mostly thinking about tv coverage. I think most people get their info from internet/tv

I haven't researched that but I think most folks are quicker to turn on a tv/computer than pick up a newspaper.

You may be right.. Fibberdigibbets, LOL - may still have voted for him. It still boggles my mind that so many educated white women voted for him after the Access Hollywood Tape.

Even if you were undecided on policy issues. That alone would have sealed the deal for me. The man admitted to sexually assaulting women. Grabbing women by their genitals because he can, kissing them without permission, simply because he's a celebrity. Disgusting. Is that the kind of leader you want?

Any man that does that to me is getting a slap in the face, a knee in the groin and I'm calling 911. I don' t care who you are. But even after that tape surfaced, we were still talking about Hillary's emails on tv. Followed by Podesta emails. It was mind boggling.

And yes, they certainly normalized his transgressions. A lot was made out of Hillary's Deplorables comments. Again, the media - went to town with coverage about her comments - as if she had committed the ultimate sin. While ignoring the violence and racism at his rallies. That HE encouraged. So once again, she was vilified for calling out something that should not be accepted.

[maxsolomon]

37. "Deplorables" meant the alt-rightists backing him.

But it was willfully misconstrued by RW media and then that "controversy" was reported on by the MSM. I heard elderly Trumpists take it as a badge of honor - in business meetings, my aunt & uncle.

Poor upper middle class whipipo. They're so put-upon...

[KWR65]

23. It is because people don't vote.

[lark]

26. Russia and USA oligarchs picked this one destructive pretend person to wreck the country

in their favor.

[TygrBright]

27. They had powerful help from Russia. n/t

[tavernier]

28. Fox News

[The Wielding Truth]

33. +1000 When lies are allowed to go unchallenged on mass media, manipulation thrives!

[Mc Mike]

30. Law enforcement and intel failures,

coupled with a royal family bloodline fetish and the lawyer pyramid scheme foundational failings of our democracy.

An orange WASP who thinks he's half a wiseguy and half a aristocratic emperor failed his way to the top.

The repugs are monarchists, nihilists, anarchists, communists,syndicalists and fascists. Makes for an ugly boil on democracy that has to be lanced.

[BlueJac]

31. Don't forget!!!

Hate is easy to sell to the public with the help from Fox News!

[C_U_L8R]

32. Right wing media

and a 30 year brainwashing