Debating with Trump Supporters
I initially wrote this as a response to a conservative friend on Facebook, and wanted to save it here:
It feels like I've had the same detailed conversations about Trump's criminal behavior, impacts on the economy, etc. over and over with a number of conservative friends (I have 5 or so on Facebook) multiple times over the past few years. I've finally learned to just scroll past your political posts as I know that having a discussion about these things is pretty much futile on both sides, sadly.
The thing that has been going through my head over the past couple of weeks has been to continue to wonder how so many people like yourself (who are actually intelligent and usually well educated) still stick behind this President no matter what he does. A lot of people just say it's because of Fox News, but I know it isn't that simple - Though it may be for some people, shouldn't be discounted at all, and is certainly a factor. Going back to the last election, for a lot of people, Trump was the rogue-outsider candidate who was going to come out of nowhere and shake up the system, supposedly. He was purported to be a successful businessman, and many people believed that this is what was needed for decades now (since Ross Perot, at least). He was what was left as a choice after Sanders was robbed of the nomination by Clinton and the DNC, and he even took some of the narrative that Bernie was putting forth in an effort to bring those voters over to him. He struck a resounding and familiar chord with a lot of people in the simple slogans he was putting forth - "Build the Wall", "Make America Great Again", "Drain the Swamp". Once elected, he did actually move quickly to enact policies that were legally questionable, at best, and to put people into positions of power as he saw fit. He got the tax cut passed that the GOP and the corporations wanted. He started appointing hundreds of conservative Federal judges around the country and a couple to the Supreme Court. He pulled us out of the Paris accords and the Iran nuclear agreement.
I suppose that if you were initially a conservative who believes that:
1. Climate change is a hoax.
2. Tax breaks need to be given to the rich and corporations in order to create jobs.
3. Abortion should be illegal and even punishable with prison time.
4. The public school system, though underfunded, should be replaced with private schools.
5. Immigrants from Central and South America are criminals who want to come here to steal jobs.
6. Poor and homeless people only exist to suck on the taxpayer's teet. Government programs are a waste of taxpayer money.
7. LGBT people, women, and minorities don't deserve the same rights as everyone else.
[Plus multiple other things I'm probably forgetting at the moment]
...then this is "Your Boy" and you're willing to look past or completely ignore any shortcomings/wrongdoing of his to keep him in office for as long as possible. It's entertaining to see him get everyone so up in arms over everything.
I can (and already have, extensively) go into everything that is wrong with all that I've listed out above, but I may as well go into a church and play "The Last Temptation of Christ" in front of the congregation, because it's basically the same thing and I'd rather not bother anymore.
Oh, and my lunch break is about over. Well, that was fun.
It feels like I've had the same detailed conversations about Trump's criminal behavior, impacts on the economy, etc. over and over with a number of conservative friends (I have 5 or so on Facebook) multiple times over the past few years. I've finally learned to just scroll past your political posts as I know that having a discussion about these things is pretty much futile on both sides, sadly.
The thing that has been going through my head over the past couple of weeks has been to continue to wonder how so many people like yourself (who are actually intelligent and usually well educated) still stick behind this President no matter what he does. A lot of people just say it's because of Fox News, but I know it isn't that simple - Though it may be for some people, shouldn't be discounted at all, and is certainly a factor. Going back to the last election, for a lot of people, Trump was the rogue-outsider candidate who was going to come out of nowhere and shake up the system, supposedly. He was purported to be a successful businessman, and many people believed that this is what was needed for decades now (since Ross Perot, at least). He was what was left as a choice after Sanders was robbed of the nomination by Clinton and the DNC, and he even took some of the narrative that Bernie was putting forth in an effort to bring those voters over to him. He struck a resounding and familiar chord with a lot of people in the simple slogans he was putting forth - "Build the Wall", "Make America Great Again", "Drain the Swamp". Once elected, he did actually move quickly to enact policies that were legally questionable, at best, and to put people into positions of power as he saw fit. He got the tax cut passed that the GOP and the corporations wanted. He started appointing hundreds of conservative Federal judges around the country and a couple to the Supreme Court. He pulled us out of the Paris accords and the Iran nuclear agreement.
I suppose that if you were initially a conservative who believes that:
1. Climate change is a hoax.
2. Tax breaks need to be given to the rich and corporations in order to create jobs.
3. Abortion should be illegal and even punishable with prison time.
4. The public school system, though underfunded, should be replaced with private schools.
5. Immigrants from Central and South America are criminals who want to come here to steal jobs.
6. Poor and homeless people only exist to suck on the taxpayer's teet. Government programs are a waste of taxpayer money.
7. LGBT people, women, and minorities don't deserve the same rights as everyone else.
[Plus multiple other things I'm probably forgetting at the moment]
...then this is "Your Boy" and you're willing to look past or completely ignore any shortcomings/wrongdoing of his to keep him in office for as long as possible. It's entertaining to see him get everyone so up in arms over everything.
I can (and already have, extensively) go into everything that is wrong with all that I've listed out above, but I may as well go into a church and play "The Last Temptation of Christ" in front of the congregation, because it's basically the same thing and I'd rather not bother anymore.
Oh, and my lunch break is about over. Well, that was fun.
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