OT - Donald Trump's Big Red 'Button'

[tarquinbeech]

If that's your definition of silent majority, that it can actually be a minority, I suppose all candidates have them as fewer people go to rallies than vote for all candidates. I think all candidates had rallies and Trump's were quite vocal, violent in fact, usually incited by the man himself. Trump liked them so much he still has them as president, its what he does best and they make him feel good I suppose.

You do care who runs the US because you have already said on here that you prioritised his anti Muslim stance against his relaxing of environmental regulations as you thought it was more important. You also care strongly about who runs France, Italy, Germany, Austria or anywhere else there's a right-wing anti Muslim party running, unless your computer was taken by an imposter who started and contributed to numerous threads on these topics. Bizarre that you should say you don't care, maybe you just thought it sounded good when Jackal said it and wanted to copy him.

Not sure how me and others agreeing that we don't like Trump is a circle jerk while you and your friends agreeing about other issues is somehow more noble, but I'm sure you'll explain in due course.

It is not my definition...it is the one widely held by politicians and defined in Wiki......most people already have their views and no amount of posturing will alter it. Sid is a classic example, he does not think highly of Corbyn or Abbott but would clearly vote Labour over Tory in the hope that Starmer comes to power in the future.

It is the same for myself with Trump, I do not rate the guy as a person but you are correct that I see him in the same light as AFD in Germany, the Poles telling the EU to "do one" over immigration, Hungary the same, Putin backing Syria....I can even applaud Macron over his efforts to speed up deportations from France, a policy he copied from Le Pen, bless him.

As for your last comment, it is strange that I did not even bother with joining into this thread until post 60 when I am on here every day.....I merely watched you and your buddies commiserating with each other......of course I could have joined in earlier to back Alty or Serious, but I did not.

[tarquinbeech]

I certainly understand the point you're making.

When you watch a lot of the TV news broadcasts, and even light entertainment programmes such as comedy here in the UK, there is a certain political tone which is presented as if it is without doubt the predominant view in the country and people are generally in agreement with it. Certainly that was the case prior to the Brexit vote, where the overriding presumption in the months leading up to the vote was that the country would ultimately vote to 'Remain'. It was also broadly 'accepted' here that Donald Trump would not win the US Presidency. In fact, if you watched the result night broadcasts for both of these events on pretty much any UK news channel, the studio discussions for the first four hours or so pretty much maintained this assumption, with all the talk being about how the 'Leave' or Republican camps would respond to their inevitable defeat. Meanwhile, the vote totals at the bottom of the screen were telling an entirely different story to anybody who bothered to raise their head and look!

Later in the night, when it became apparent that both results had gone very differently to what was 'expected', you then got the next phenomenon of those who felt their view was shared by everyone reacting with complete shock and incredulity. They simply could not process in their minds the fact that, in reality, the "silent majority" you mention had been thinking something different all along. By the next day, you then saw on Twitter (for example) a reaction you could only describe as a temper tantrum from these folk, lambasting the nation for having the temerity to think something different to them. The shock was palpably genuine, because these chattering classes and tweeting classes spend their entire time effectively talking to themselves and reassuring each other that everyone thinks like they do!

Meanwhile, in the real world (and especially north of Watford or in Rust Belt America!), the average man/woman in the street looked at the Brexit or Presidential result and thought, well, we did tell you what we thought all along, but nobody seemed to be listening!

I would like to give a huge LIKE to this post.....but I fear that it will only send Driller into another tailspin......so "no comment"

[drillerpie]

It is not my definition...it is the one widely held by politicians and defined in Wiki......most people already have their views and no amount of posturing will alter it. Sid is a classic example, he does not think highly of Corbyn or Abbott but would clearly vote Labour over Tory in the hope that Starmer comes to power in the future.

It is the same for myself with Trump, I do not rate the guy as a person but you are correct that I see him in the same light as AFD in Germany, the Poles telling the EU to "do one" over immigration, Hungary the same, Putin backing Syria....I can even applaud Macron over his efforts to speed up deportations from France, a policy he copied from Le Pen, bless him.

As for your last comment, it is strange that I did not even bother with joining into this thread until post 60 when I am on here every day.....I merely watched you and your buddies commiserating with each other......of course I could have joined in earlier to back Alty or Serious, but I did not.

So if having a majority of votes is not necessary to be a silent majority, you won't mind if as a remainer I call myself part of the silent majority. I and most others didn't go to any rallies.

So you do care who runs other countries, lots of them in fact.

Would you say that Serious and AltyPie agreeing with each other was a circle jerk? What about you and Trickytreesreds and others when Le Pen was running? Was that one?

[drillerpie]

I would like to give a huge LIKE to this post.....but I fear that it will only send Driller into another tailspin......so "no comment"

Oh thanks for that I was so close to a tailspin there.

What's a tailspin and when did I do my first one?

[andy6025]

Tarkers, if you want to argue about a book neither of us have read, be my guest. However, I prefer to attack him on issues such as NK and climate change. On the last issue alone I would have thought that you'd be appalled by Trump and that it'd be what we call a 'deal-breaker', but instead your overall rating of Trump as president seems ambiguous at best, if not favourable.

[seriouspie]

If you were old enough or intelligent enough you should know. Let this old time self confessed proud Englishman help you out with an elementary expression.

"TAILSPIN" ........ Generally accepted as something or somebody being out of control.

This saying originated possibly from aircraft spinning out of control to the ground. i.e the tail was spinning with the plane in the vertical position.

[drillerpie]

If you were old enough or intelligent enough you should know. Let this old time self confessed proud Englishman help you out with an elementary expression.

"TAILSPIN" ........ Generally accepted as something or somebody being out of control.

This saying originated possibly from aircraft spinning out of control to the ground. i.e the tail was spinning with the plane in the vertical position.

Excellent, thanks for that. Can you use your nous to help me locate the facepalm emoji too?

[seriouspie]

Tarkers, if you want to argue about a book neither of us have read, be my guest. However, I prefer to attack him on issues such as NK and climate change. On the last issue alone I would have thought that you'd be appalled by Trump and that it'd be what we call a 'deal-breaker', but instead your overall rating of Trump as president seems ambiguous at best, if not favourable.

Sorry Andy - and with no disrespect, you talk nonsense. Trump will bleed NK dry if they carry on testing - a good thing to bring Kim to the table. Climate change? Admittedly something for the world boffins to look at but again something for the anti Trump activists to complain about. It will get sorted.

[seriouspie]

Jesus Christ ....... what are you on about now re: 'facepalm'? Emolgi's are foreign to me youth. Do you mean silly kindergarten cartoons or their like which kids prat about with on phones? Sorry to be ignorant!

[drillerpie]

Jesus Christ ....... what are you on about now re: 'facepalm'? Emolgi's are foreign to me youth. Do you mean silly kindergarten cartoons or their like which kids prat about with on phones? Sorry to be ignorant!

No no, don't apologise. To be honest I'm already quite impressed that you've started to judge a person's intelligence from their vocabulary, and not by other criteria like nobbing lots of women back in the good old days, being old, or...ah no actually being old still is one isn't it?

Anyway getting back to our original exchange, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the share of governments' tax incomes being paid by low earners since neoliberal economics came to the fore.