this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2025
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Understand USA

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"Crisis in Understanding in USA"
"Manchurian Population"
"People keep saying they do not understand how it is possible"
"Understanding the Crisis in Understanding"

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Reddit comment modr9s2

https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1k4wljs/my_dinner_with_adolf_larry_david_roasts_bill/modr9s2/

"I find it so strange that some people could ever be hoodwinked by Trump in any context. I've never needed someone to sit down and explain exactly why he's a bad person, he just exudes it from every pore. It's not like my only frame of reference is his political speeches or policy. I watched the Joe Rogan interview. I watched all these streams where he's being nice.

Even when he's not being outwardly aggressive, he is still completely and utterly insufferable. He can't even tell you about knickknacks on the wall without sounding like a sleazy used car salesman. He's a grifter and a liar and a braggart and a liar again. It's just who he is in his soul and I've never seen him behave in a way that suggests he's an actual human being. He's like an empty vessel being puppeted by demons.

I'm certain I couldn't stand in a room with him for five minutes. He just has no redeeming qualities."

 

Reddit reply comment moegql4

https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1k4wljs/my_dinner_with_adolf_larry_david_roasts_bill/moegql4/

From Nate White for why the British do not like him:

“A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief. Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege. And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that: * Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are. * You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man. This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump. And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?’ If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.”

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[–] RoundSparrow@lemm.ee 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

"I find it so strange that some people could ever be hoodwinked by Trump in any context"

This social media topic:

"Crisis in Understanding in USA" Mastodon Hashtag
"Manchurian Population" Mastodon Hashtag
"People keep saying they do not understand how it is possible"
"Understanding the Crisis in Understanding" Mastodon Hashtag

 

What to Understand

  1. Donald Trump is the most obvious liar and egomaniac since year 2013. It is blatant, it is obvious, it is clear as day, it is documented.

  2. Understanding the Problem Assertion 1: The problem is not Donald Trump. One liar "Big Shot" who plays golf and spends time with his family retired in Florida on the golf course and goes and hangs out with his buddies is nothing special for a man age 70 and older.

  3. Understanding the Problem Assertion 2: The problem is We The People, the population of society. "MASS PSYCHOSIS - How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL"

  4. How did this happen? Assertion 3: A 1985 book by Neil Postman, Manhattan / New York University Professor (Donald Trump's Home Town) predicted all this for Americas future. On February 2, 2017 his son Andrew Postman confirmed that Donald Trump was what his father's book was ultimately about.

[–] eskimofry@lemm.ee 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

At this point I have a theory that those who aligned with Trump because it benefits them will act gullible if Trump loses the role of president... just to avoid getting raked over the coals.

[–] RoundSparrow@lemm.ee 1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

I have a theory that those who aligned with Trump because it benefits them will act gullible if Trump loses

It's called "tactical cleverness", and this group behavior of mob mentality was described in 1951 book:

“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.” ― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951

 

The entire nation, 100 percent of the population, in in values of mass dehumanization and promoting messages of hate harder, this is a society-wide problem of everyone - even if Donald Trump is removed or dies from poor eating habits or travel accident, there is a whole line of people who want to hate and dehumanize Americans they disagree with or don't find entertaining. Goodness has been abandoned in favor of technology values / entertainment attraction and hate as a common faith system. It is going to take a massive change in values for people to land somewhere good / progressive / positive.

just to avoid getting raked over the coals.

The behavior of everyone is self-harm of the nation, revenge, payback, machine dehumanization of "the other"... raking over the coals is going to happen if people don't adopt compassion and love teaching as priority one.

 

::: __________
“Technopoly is a state of culture. It is also a state of mind. It consists in the deification of technology, which means that the culture seeks its authorization in technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes its orders from technology.” ― Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, 1992

[–] Florn@hexbear.net 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The simple answer is that they're not. Donald Trump is what the Republican base has wanted since Reagan.

[–] RoundSparrow@lemm.ee 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The simple answer is that they’re not. Donald Trump is what the Republican base has wanted since Reagan.

Which is assertion number 3 on my list. While Ronald Reagan was in office in 1985, a book was written predicting Donald Trump's rise. It was written by a professor in New York City, the home town of Donald Trump. Been sitting on the bookshelf for 40 years.