Tony stated he couldn’t understand why 1/2 the US could support trump. I said Trump had a very large appeal. But “mainstream” should take in a very large percentage of the middle. If any side, GOP/DNC, would run on a mainstream platform they’d win in a landslide. Conservatives don’t see Liberal ideologies as valid, Liberals dismiss Conservatives, and there in lies the problem..... most of the time the messenger defines the context and not the message itself. Compound that with the political entrenchment of today’s voter. Both parties pay lip service to mainstream Americans and then govern in their own self interests, patronizing big business and those who paid to put them in power. Trump was outside the mold, but even he campaigns in an “us vs them” methodology.
Propping up and bailouts are tools of the Left. They act like temporary bandages that soothe but do not solve the underlying problems. The only solution is to accept that things die. Then you move on to new ideas and innovation Every country has the opportunity to reinvent itself. Japan after the war was completely devastated. They began their recovery by producing low tech goods and of shoddy quality. There was a time when there was a stigma attached to the label Made in Japan. Gradually their economy recovered. They start to produce goods with a higher component of technology and manufacturing excellence. Today when you see a Made in Japan you think high quality.
Back on the soapbox, How many times have we seen Trump’s positions mirrored with those of Bill Clinton, Obama, saying the same thing. There’s YouTube’s where someone asks people how they feel about this issue or that, but switch the names of the person who said it. The message or position didn’t matter as much as their side saying it, or opposing their sides platform when it was quoted as being from the opposite party. We been conditioned politically like Pavlov’s dogs, each side ringing a bell as we salivate at the polls. We’re purposely divided in two and blinded to the opposition, when in reality the “Mainstream” is very similar minded.
Venezuela fell to chicken-in-your-pot populism. Left and right don't matter. Promise the unwashed the most outrageous crap you can imagine and they will vote for you if you keep repeating it.
More power to 'em, then. I prefer to keep the red states in the union, even if they are net dependent on the rest.
But, they do have an out. Why didn't someone in Venezuela simply invent the internet, cars, Apple, TV, radio, the microwave, electricity, create a different industry, massive biotech company, the lightbulb, gum, ice cream, soda, the electric motor, computers, iphone, Facebook, Google, ecom, ebay, paypal, watches, modern manufacturing, etc? Or, why didn't Venezuela simply copy US tech and manufacturing like China or Japan?
Its odd though.. the number of dictators who had bad stomachs. Hitler famously resorted to a vegetarian diet following his WWI injury (from which he earned the nickname "the screamer"), Mussolini "Oppressor of Pasta" with his gas from severe stomach ulcers, Gaddafi was legendary in interviews for baking the room. Then the "farting hare of Harare" Mugabe who's most quotable quote is "Don't be ashamed to fart when urinating because there is no rain without a thunderstorm" and of course leading to to Trump who's name literally means fart in both English and German "eine sausen drumpfen" or a whiz fart (piss thump). I'm sure there are more and possibly something to do with the personality type being all wound up. Maybe Trumpers have no sense of smell?
Total Cubans in FL is about 1.5 million.....not all registered voters. FL has maybe 15 - 16 million registered voters and you think Cubans swung the election for Trump?