THIS ONE IS A DOOZY! The question on Quora was, “Would liberals be surprised to learn that conservatives aren’t exactly enthralled with Donald Trump either?” One must make some assumptions when engaging other Internetally, so I assume that the person who posted this question is politically conservative. I also assume that he assumes that asking it displays his feelings and opinion about the current administration as being reasonable.
But whatever one’s politics, we have all watched an apparent racist, misogynistic, narcissist, and bully embrace white supremacists as a candidate.
My name is called Disturbance. I’ll shout and scream! I’ll kill the king! I’ll rail at all his servants!
We have watched him run amok for two years as the president, throwing what appear to be temper tantrums via tweets (“tweetrums”?) on a daily basis. We have read these tweets, which are often as grammatically challenged as they are factually challenged.
Thinking that when you “aren’t exactly enthralled” with Trump’s heinous behavior you are somehow being reasonable . . . well, folks, that’s not exactly a reasonable response.
A reasonable response at this time might be to run amok yourself, yelling things like “My name is called Disturbance. I’ll shout and scream! I’ll kill the king! I’ll rail at all his servants!” and “Off with his head!”
Needless to say, I offered up an answer to the question, “Would liberals be surprised to learn that conservatives aren’t exactly enthralled with Donald Trump either?” You can read it below, indented between the two cartoons (and both cartoons were brought to my attention by Maryann Hymel).
Cartoon by Dave Granlund.
“Would liberals be surprised to learn
that conservatives aren’t exactly enthralled with Donald Trump either?”
The Anecdote
A number of years ago, I met a woman who worked for the lottery commission of our state. I remarked that it seemed backward to me that states would let individual lotteries build up until there were gigantic pots exceeding $100,000,000.
I asked, “Why don’t the states just take their cut off the top of each week’s ticket sales, then divide what’s left into lots of $100,000 each and give a hundred residents a $100,000 pay-out instead of giving one resident a $10,000,000 pay-out?”
She smiled and said, “You’re not a gambler, are you?”
“No,” I replied. “Why?”
She said, “If you were, you’d understand: the bigger the prize, the more tickets we sell. The more tickets we sell, the more money the states make.”
“Huh,” I said.
“Gamblers like to gamble,” she said, “and they’re the ones that spend all the money buying all the tickets.”
The Election
In the 2016 presidential election, the vote tallies were:
Clinton: 65,844,610
Trump: 62,979,636
Clinton beat Trump with 48.2% of the votes to his 46.1% of the votes. (The other 5.7% of the votes were cast by those really smart folk who like to make “statements” with their wasted votes.)
Nonetheless, the electors of the Electoral College gave Trump the win.
It would not be inaccurate to say that it’s been chaotic since.
The Wager
That anecdote above was to inform you that not only am I not a gambling man, but I also don’t even understand gamblers.
That said, I’m prepared to make you a hypothetical wager, and the data about the last election above was to give you facts about my wager.
Here is my wager: if a special re-election was held in November 2018 with Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump, I will bet you that the same 62,979,636 people who voted for Trump in 2016 would vote for him again in 2018.
I will give you 10:1 (ten-to-one) odds and I’m willing to put up my last buck-three-eighty in the bet!
The Footnote
Of course, if such a special re-election was held, there would probably be several million more votes cast. There were a lot of idiots people who sat out the 2016 election because of two major reasons:
1. They didn’t see any difference between the two parties.
2. They were swallowed FBI head and lifelong Rep*blican James Comey’s “October surprise” announcement about finding yet more meaningless “Hillary emails,” an action he allegedly regretted after it almost certainly cost Clinton millions of votes.
It’s likely that a small portion of the first group would realize that—gasp!—there is a HUGE difference between the two parties. These people could show up this time and vote for Clinton.
It’s also likely that a small portion of the second group would realize that Comey f*cked them over with his announcement and that there never was any evidence of any kind of wrongdoing by Clinton. These people could show up this time and vote for Clinton.
Consequently, Clinton could win a re-election by the 6,000,000-8,000,000 votes she should have won the 2016 election by. This would be too big a difference for the bastards at the Electoral College to overcome.
Because I realize that for either of the above scenarios to happen, several million people would have to acknowledge that they were wrong about something and to act on it.
On this, I will not gamble . . .
Cartoon by Jack Ohman.
Both sides do it
Finally, give a read to the opinion piece “Trump Derangement Syndrome Is a Myth” by David Leonhardt on today’s New York Times website. The sub-heading is, “And the Democratic Party has not actually become a band of radical leftists.” Here are the opening paragraphs:
“Conventional wisdom says that the middle is disappearing from American politics: The Republicans have moved far to the right, the Democrats far to the left, and woe to any moderate voters looking for politicians to represent their views.
Well, the conventional wisdom is wrong. The Democrats have not actually become radical leftists, or anything close to it.
You keep hearing this story partly because Republicans have an obvious interest in promoting it and partly because large parts of the news media find it irresistible. It’s a ‘both sides do it’ angle that allows us journalists to appear tough, knowing and above the partisan scrum. We love that image. But the facts don’t support the story in this case.”
Millions of people have to acknowledge they were wrong about Trump and do something about it and on this, I will not gamble. Click To TweetFEATURED IMAGE: The image at the top of this page is a drawing by Jeffrey Smith that accompanied the article “How to Build an Autocracy” by David Frum on The Atlantic website. The sub-heading is, “The preconditions are present in the U.S. today. Here’s the playbook Donald Trump could use to set the country down a path toward illiberalism.
Mystically liberal Virgo enjoys long walks alone in the city at night in the rain with an umbrella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig who strives to live by the maxim, “It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know that just ain’t so.
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a college dropout (twice!). Occupationally, I have been a bartender, jewelry engraver, bouncer, landscape artist, and FEMA crew chief following the Great Flood of ’72 (and that was a job that I should never, ever have left).
I am also the final author of the original O’Sullivan Woodside price guides for record collectors and the original author of the Goldmine price guides for record collectors. As such, I was often referred to as the Price Guide Guru, and—as everyone should know—it behooves one to heed the words of a guru. (Unless, of course, you’re the Beatles.)