Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 18/03/25

Maybe if you are stoned and watched and listened to the Joe Rogan Experience with Trump it might actually make some coherent sense otherwise there is nothing normal at all listening to that podcast.

Previously on this forum, I asked how Trump gets away with things Nixon wouldn't have gotten away with? In reply, I was told Trump's behaviour has become normalised - but how did US society change so much from what it was in the 1970s to let that normalisation take place?

@political analyst

I have a feeling that diving into that topic in detail would provide enough material not only for multiple scientific papers but full blown PhD theses, but I’ll try my best to give you my take on this. Please note that I’m not an expert on that subject, so feel free to also take other posters into account.

From my perspective, there are multiple strands that are coming together. For starters, the generally bipartisan nature of US politics has always lent itself to a more acrimonious political climate than we’d be used to over here in Europe. One just needs to look at the anger and hatred that confronted the civil rights movement or later the anti-Vietnam protests. More importantly though, the traditional heartland of the US went into an economic decline starting in the mid 1970s. That’s when what is now known as the Rust Belt began to form as US heavy industry began to suffer from cheaper imports from abroad, the US motor industry started to fall behind, and so on. This downward trend wasn’t limited to the industrial epicenters of the country though, but also hit the agricultural sector, with many small-town industries either closing completely or being consolidated into fewer larger plants.

At the same time, the US was at an all-time low in the post-war era. Its international standing had taken a beating as a result of the Vietnam war, and the post-WW2 beliefs of many Americans, namely that they were the greatest democracy on Earth had been eroded away by the seemingly interminable political turmoil in the 1960s, from JFK to the Civil Rights movement, to RFK, MLK, Kent State and numerous similar events. Speaking of the civil rights movements, whilst first JFK and then later primarily Lyndon Johnson had pushed through the removal of Jim Crow laws and the desegregation of public life, many in the southern states only grudgingly accepted this, but were not happy with it at all, leading to a simmering feeling of resentment in many areas of the South. This was only exacerbated by the effects of the economic decline from the 1970s onwards.

It was this resentment that conservative religious leaders and, after the election of Jimmy Carter, also the Republican leadership tapped into and started to feed, something which culminated in the election of Reagan. Conservative leaders also began to deliberately undermine their political opponents, beyond what had previously been seen as normal, the Iran hostage crisis being a good example of that. And while Reagan did manage to turn the US economy around, his trickle-down economics and deregulation did little to alleviate the situation in the Rust Belt or out on the Great Plains, so that resentment was still there. It was against this backdrop that what I consider to be one of the most disastrous moves of the Reagan administration took place: The abolition of the fairness doctrine. This piece of legislation had obliged broadcasters in the US to ensure that differing view points on any issue should be given fair and equal coverage. Whilst the conservative revival in the rural US would have gone on even without that decision, it was this move that would allow the at the time up and coming cable news stations to throw fairness to the wind and fully cater to their viewers bias. Whilst I don’t think that this was an issue at first, over times this would pave the way for the likes of Fox News or Newsmax today.

Finally, this brings us to today. As with so many things, Donald Trump did not breed the type of supporter that he has today and that enables his, in my opinion truly vile and deplorable, actions and statements. Moreover, he is taken advantage of a generation of people who grew up in a highly divided country in the mid to late 1960s, had their world views shattered when they left school in the early to mid 1970s, were faced with significant economic struggles in the 1980s, and from the late 1980s and early 1990s onwards began to be fed an increasingly polarised stream of broadcast news, something only reinforced when satellite radio services such as Sirius or XM Radio came onto the market. At the same time, because they had been brought up on the message that the US was the best there is, an because they were often the children of what has been called “The Greatest Generation”, that is the one that fought WW2, they grew up not lacking in ego, so now that they’re retired, the feel, and act, like the world owes it to them to satisfy their every whim because of what they supposedly went through.

This isn’t helped by the fact that education budges have been continuously slashed for decades, whilst conservative evangelical leaders have consistently tried to, and in many cases succeeded in removing or castrating many of the subjects that are essential for kids in a modern democracy from public school curricula: Civics, Science, Sex Ed, etc., to the point where some States have removed Evolution from their science textbooks in favour of Creationist teachings, school books especially in Republican dominated states have seen the likes of the Trail of Tears or the Civil War either removed or watered down by revisionist viewpoints, etc.. All of this creates the witches brew that has caused the likes of Donald Trump, Greg Abbott or Ron DeSantis to float to the top.

I know that I’ve written a lot, but all of this is only scratching the very surface of all the different elements at play here. Also, I am not an unbiased source, so feel free to research any of the points I mentioned on your own to get a better understanding of the subject at hand.

How many layers of makeup is Trump plastering on these days? He makes David Dickinson look like an albino…

How does he walk away from the defamation case v Carroll it has gone to appeal and thrown out, Judge said he was just repeating himself…..

No, just a small dip today as it's gone from about $15 to $53 in the previous week

A position she maintained until the very end...

Is that one of his Scottish golfclub courses?

Roll on Tuesday, I think there may be a surprise.

That selzer poll out is really bad news for Trump, actually one of the few reputable polls, if its that close in Iowa he ain't got a chance in Penn Wisconsin.

You'd think this would be enough for people to think "Maybe he's not suited to be President…"

she’d be squarely against him right now too but she still deludes herself into thinking she has a shot in 2028 and can’t bear to be saddled with the RINO label