Saturday’s Forum
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FILED UNDER: Open Forum
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Austin Pearson, rw talk radio host, The Wake Up America Show.
@AP4Liberty, 1 July 24:
@AP4Liberty, 8 May 2025:
They voted for Trump and now their son is in ICE detention (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Trump-Voting Parents ‘Feel Betrayed’ After ICE Agents Detain Their Son (Newsweek):
@Music21CJ, 7 Oct 2024 (Deleted):
@Music21CJ, 6 July 2024:
@Music21CJ, 1 May 2025:
Trump to ABC News on 29 July 2025, on backlash to his economic policies:
@DK: The stove has to be hot to make people stop wanting to touch it. 😉
I, for one, am glad that people are getting what they voted for good and hard. It’s too bad the rest of us have to go down with the ship, as well.
Remember a couple of years ago there was a fatality in a private jet that encountered sudden, severe turbulence?
The NTSB report on that is out, and it wasn’t turbulence.
It was pilot induced oscillations, which sounds far better than poor human factors design or perhaps deficient training. But it was also not wearing seatbelts.
This part of the report points to a problem: “The fatally injured passenger’s seatbelt was not fastened at the time of the in-flight upset. The PIC (Pilot in Command) reported that the seatbelt sign was on for the entire flight, and that his regular practice was to never turn it off.”
That’s a major issue, IMO. The seatbelt sign should be turned off when it’s safe for the passengers to move around the cabin. If it’s always on, people will ignore it.
On turbulence, severe turbulence is on the rise. Fatalities remain rare, but injuries are on the rise due to it. Keep your seatbelt on at all times while on your seat.
Statement by Chief Pentagon Spokesman and Senior Advisor, Sean Parnell, on Certification of Merit-Based Military Service Academy Admissions
Now I think there is less here than meets the eye. Evaluations of an application is still done on a “whole person” basis. Which is far more than test scores. The real issue is whether the DoD higher ups will try to “supervise” the military academies (of which there are 5) and seek to override their admissions evaluation process. Second, will the nominations by Congress critters be ignored and thus piss off a whole lot of people. I think both scenarios will be probable.
@Scott:
Can I just say that the very best candidates selected on the merits apparently are too delicate and immature to be exposed to unapproved ideas.
@Jax:
I want their faces pressed against that stove. I want these people to lose everything and have it destroy them for generations. Fuck them.
@DK:
anyone asinine enough to vote in order to “own the libs” deserves exactly what he gets.
@DK:
Apparently the stove isn’t hot enough for Austin Petersen, rw talk radio host (and still a trump supporter).
@AP4Liberty, 9 May 2025:
@Eusebio:
Uh, how do you separate the man from his policies????
I guess owning the libs Trumps everything else.
Trump loudly proclaims himself the neo-racist President as he ejects non-white refugees who legitimately meet refugee criteria while simultaneously welcoming white South Africans as “refugees” in a statement against that country’s attempt to unwind persistent effects of white colonialism. No doubt, Musk had influence here.
In the run up to the end of apartheid in 1990, I began encountering more and more white South African transplants in my work-world. After 1990 and that phenomenon became more frequent, I wondered what the long term impact this would have on American society and politics. The results are in. I posit that today’s in-your-face reprisal of openly hostile American white racist activism as a mainline political force, draws upon, in some small part, that decades long migration of white South Africans fleeing social change in their own country.
———-
It seems to me that there are at least two rationales for accepting people’s expressed regret at voting for and/or supporting Trump.
1. Humanistic. If it’s an individual and social good, on net, for people to express regret, one should foster an environment that allows for such expressions. That welcomes such expressions. That does not punish such expressions. It’s good for the regretter and for the fosterer and for society.
2. Strategic. Most people find it difficult to fess up, admit a mistake, express regret. Especially for things as loaded as political affiliation and voting behavior. Such expressions are usually borne out of extreme expectancy violations and hardship. These represent critical moments where people are open to change (in perspective, behavior, etc).* Hence, if the goal of US politics is to get members of one’s team elected and advance their policies, one should embrace the expressers of regret, help them see the team differently, invite them to join the team, etc.
Of course, there are rationales for not accepting people’s expressed regret (eg, shame has a social function). And there are explanations for why one does not accept the expressed regret (eg, spite is a real and legit and satisfying** emotion).
I’m being one-sided here… presenting a stronger case for accepting than not accepting. I do that intentionally, because I’m writing to myself, because I struggle with this very thing.
For the Trump voters and/or supporters and/or apologists in my life, what do I demand of them in order to accept any expressions of remorse or disappointment or doubt? How are my demands self-satisfying vs. productive vs. strategic… ?
*This is the foundation for motivational interviewing.
**Until it isn’t.
@Beth:
While I understand and condone your view, that’s far too easy on them.
Personally, I’ve always subscribed to Machiavelli’s edict of never doing an enemy a small injury.
What it says about me that I view your call as “a small injury” is why society never wants Luddite in charge.
@Mimai: Trump is governing differently than he did in his first term. He’s being more aggressive on tariffs, deportations, opposing discriminatory policies, and staff cuts. Someone could support him in his first term and think he’s wrong now.
@DK: It is amazing how much people simply do not understand the global economy and why what Trump is doing is an utter disater.
@DK: You know, targetting the worst of the worst.
@Eusebio:
What is a man if not his policy?
Dank policy = dank soul.
@Rob1: Seems to me under the powers Trump thinks he has, these Afrikaners can be deported immediately to some shithole (Haiti?) within days of a new administration
@Fortune:
Trump said he was coming back with a blowtorch and vengeance in mind. He said he was going apply tariffs bigly and across the board. He said he was going to axe social programs. He did not push back on his vocal supporters and influencers who ejaculated racist and bigoted aspirations for his return to office. He said he was going to sever long established alliances. He said he was pals with Putin and sided with Russia’s rationalization for invading Ukraine while slaughtering its citizens wholesale. He said he would undo every single Biden-Obama-Dem policy he could get his hands on from air quality to civil rights.
How freakin’ dense (or spiteful) does someone have to be to not understand THAT?
@Scott: Except Dems wouldn’t do that. Rule of law and human decency and all. You know, stuff this Trumplican administration is in deep deficit.
@Beth:
Or, funk them.
Funk the Dumb Stuff
@rob1: Are you asking a genuine question?
@Fortune:
Are you?
I’m too ignorant to figure out what is happening with asset prices. Bitcoin is over $100,000 and up almost 70% in one year. I have no idea what gives btc any value and why it should be substantially more valuable now than a year ago. Likewise, Tesla. TSLA is up 77% in a year. This is despite declining unit sales all over the world. I think that people buy cars for a lot more reasons than a search for cost effective transportation. Clearly, fashion, prestige, and vroom are big factors, but hasn’t Musk degraded these? Gold is up 40% this past year while platinum is actually down 0.7% and palladium is likewise sluggish at up 0.18%. These facts don’t make sense to me.
@Beth:
Well isn’t that nice.
@Slugger:
I suspect it has to do with the rich simply having too much money. There’s only so much they can spend and the rest has to get parked somewhere. The more they lock up the more they have to bid up random assets to hold the value.
I’ve been tossing this around in my head a bit, but in all the budget talk in the US and UK there’s always room for some flavor of austerity, but there’s never any room for increasing taxes on the rich/corporations. Why don’t we try to balance the budget by doing that?
Or are the rich and super-rich just so fucking stupid that they’d rather lose all their shit when this whole thing collapses?
To get out in front of one particular argument: if you’re gonna say “well, the rich can just leave”. To that my answer is GOOD. 1. The super-rich are inherently destabilizing, so good riddance. 2. Where exactly are they gonna go? They have to physically live somewhere. They also need someplace for their assets. It’s not like some asshole like Thiel could just cash out all his US holdings and fuck off to happy land forever. The rich and super-rich need the U.S.\U.K.\EU as much as the rest of us. Tax them till their eyes bleed.
@rob1: Yes…are you?
@Fortune: In case you are, would you accept the following more neutral, although still opinionated, list of “What Trump has promised for his 2nd administration” from January 19, 2025?
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-trump-has-promised-for-his-2nd-administration
@Fortune: It didn’t appear to be anything other than rhetorical. How did you miss that quality? Were you looking for something to be provoked about?
@Beth:
Are you REALLY asking this question in the same room (metaphorically, at least) that Connor is in?
This is amusing:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/10/jeanine-pirro-trump-fox-news
@Mimai: I will accept them when they start taking action to undo the damage they have caused.
A lot of these people have Republican congress critters of one form or another. Are they even doing the most basic steps of calling their congress critters, and telling them to reign in this lawless administration?
Democrats don’t have a lot of power, so if the administration is going to be stopped, it’s going to be when Republican Congress critters get more scared of their voters than this administration.
I don’t even care if they admit they were wrong — pretending that they didn’t vote for this particular horror is enough, if they are doing something (anything!) to stop it.
I see that a bill has been introduced in the US House to extend the length of time Canadians over 50 can spend in the US if they own property, from the current 6 months to 8 months. I think that is the gist of it.
I have a couple of questions.
1. Do the sponsors of this bill understand that in most provinces, certainly Ontario, anyone who spends that long out of the province loses their provincial health insurance?
2. If people stop coming to visit you what makes anyone think this is the solution? Extra time in a place I don’t want to be is no incentive to visit.
@just nutha: I was asking him if he wanted something explained to him.
@DK:
Austin Pearson, rw talk radio host, The Wake Up America Show.
I had no idea that I was under new ownership.
So, he’s saying, ‘I didn’t think that Trump would do this to us MAGA small business owners. I thought he would go after Libtard small business owners.’
@just nutha:
Who?
@Kathy:
That brought to mind the old “Children of The Magenta Line” vid. This was American Airlines-internal but it spread all across the jet training community. It was highly influential and something of a de-facto guiding philosophy of how to deal with complex automation coming on line.
The nutshell version:
“Turn everything off and fly the frickin’ thing!”
@Scott:
And this was a statement by Secretary Hegseth?
A definite contender for this year’s Total Lack of Self-Awareness Prize finals.
@Fortune:
Alternate response #2:
Thank you. You just validated my point.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
As that 17th Century badass Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, said:
“Stone dead hath no fellow.”
(Context being the trial of Earl Strafford, Charles I’s most feared general, being unlikely to lead an army from the grave,)
There are times and occasions when a Luddite-like (or JohnSF-like) approach can be required.
But when they are, it’s a pretty sure indicator things have already gone to hell in a burning wheelbarrow.
@rob1:
From an international perspective, Trump 1 adminstration was sometimes annoying, sometimes reasonable, often workable with, achieved not very much.
Trump 2 is, to use the technical term, an utter shitstorm.
It’s not even the few stated policy objectives, objectionable as those may be, but the general LACK of them, and the totally chaotic, and often contradictory, implementation.
For instance, what actually IS the US policy re the Far East in general and Taiwan in particualr?
General answer from every other major state: who the f@ck knows?
See eg Australian polling on US standing as a reliable ally.
Or on the one hand puporting to support Taiwan vs China. while imposing tariffs that could wreck the Taiwan economy.
It’s just all utterly bugf@ck nuts.
@Rob1: Sometimes on Saturdays I have the time for a deeper dive. No problem if you’re not interested.
@Gustopher:
This is totally fair. Behavior > Expressions.
These things typically do not happen concurrently. At least not at first. The behavior typically follows the expressions. But this is a fragile dynamic.
If the expressions are met with derision or hostility, the natural human reaction is defensiveness. Which can then turn into offensiveness (not in the preferred direction).
So if we want the behavior — if we need the behavior — then it makes sense to foster it. I get that this can be incredibly difficult.*
But if we can’t bring ourselves to foster it, we could at least not antagonize it, stopping the behavior before it even occurs.
*A Trump supporter/apologist in my life is concerned about what is happening with science funding. Why are they concerned? Mostly, because it is massively impacting my life as an NIH-funded investigator. They have written a lot of letters to a lot of people expressing this concern (real concern, not Collins concern). I appreciate this behavior. And still, I find myself being more antagonistic than I ought — subtly and not so subtly asking why they are not outraged at all the other stuff, why they are not doing more, why they are focused mostly on the “private sector” consequences of the cuts to science, etc. I have to remind myself to take the win, remember that this is a fragile dynamic, etc.
@JohnSF:
One of the positive outcomes of my time in the Home For Wayward Boys was the time (while enjoying solitary) to realize that despite my default position of red homicidal rage, the world didn’t really need me auditioning to be the next Idi Amin or Vlad Tepes.
This is a view I’m currently struggling to maintain.*
ETA At my age, the thought of life in prison doesn’t hold the same weight it did 50 years ago.
ETA2 *(Although my willingness to cycle from zen to psycho in .002 nanoseconds garnered a certain level of respect from the lifers.)
@Beth: I know that it is probably wrong to want people to hurt, but a lot of people only learn through getting hurt. And enough people are going to get hurt by everything this administration that I’m not going to feel bad when it hits the people who voted for it.
@Mimai knows someone who is upset about the science funding, but not everything else, and I think that person needs to hurt more. Lose a job, have a crappy year, get mistaken for an illegal Canadian, etc. Enough to go from “the plan cannot fail it can only be failed” to “in retrospect, there are some significant problems with the plan.”
I used to work with a Trumper who refused to sign up for health insurance because “freedom”. He was young and stupid and I hope he gets into a motorcycle accident, breaks an arm or leg, and gets to enjoy $30,000-50,000 of medical debt. Some kind of strong swift kick that hurts enough that will change attitudes before he gets cancer or something and can’t even get timely care.
Apparently it was wrong for me to say this in a meeting, at least that’s what my boss claimed. I don’t know. I think the meeting went off the rails when the kid said that everyone hated him because he was conservative and we were all gong something terrible happened to him. “I don’t want something terrible to happen to you, just something bad” seemed entirely appropriate to me.
I expect a part of Mimai’s uncomfortableness with her feelings about this guy is that he hasn’t had enough of a learning experience yet, because he hasn’t barely learned anything.
Now stuck in my head: “You just haven’t earned it yet, baby” (Smiths? I think it’s a cover stuck in my head though… Kristy MacColl?). Some people need to earn it the hard way.
Related, I feel no sympathy for White Afrikaners, and think their wealth should be seized by the state and redistributed, as part of a decolonization program. Then, maybe, dump their asses in the US and tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I don’t want them, but I don’t think they are numerous enough to cause any real harm. Stick them all in a Dakota or Wyoming, where they really won’t matter.
@Beth: You don’t remember Connor? He’s that guy who has visited us under a half-dozen or so different names over as twice as many years and claims to be some sort of business turn-around wizard, or something like that. Surely, you remember him.
The Zero Hedge guy. Did that help?
@Gustopher: You really flipped out on a co-worker wishing violence against him and don’t recognize you were wrong? Are you serious? What’s the opposite of a humblebrag, where a person tells a story about being horrible as a means of apologizing? After that, you don’t have to tell us you feel no sympathy for people being slaughtered. We assumed it.
@JohnSF: I think that the French minister nailed it with his notion of moving away from readjusting foreign policy based on what voters in Wisconsin think every fourth year. That was trenchant!
For some reason, I’m recalling another Machiavellian notion about not being able to trust mercenaries to stay bought. Not quite sure why tho… 🙁
ETA: And again, I think if Xi were smarter, he be trying to convince the Taiwanese that “it’s time to come back home.” Unfortunately, he’s unable to close the sale.
@Fortune: Deeper dive?
@Flat Earth Luddite:
I have learnt, over time, that confining my desires to inflict harm to inside my head, and *smiling*, is generally the best option.
Knowing some rather best-not-crossed persons is perhaps a good way to learn the benefits of politeness.
Are we really living in a world where having been first lady is a qualification for office? And then I remember the “draft Michelle” rumblings from the past and just shuffle away. 🙁
@Gustopher:
Haha! Sometimes I feel similarly. Here’s the thing though: for this person, my hurt is likely to be way more intolerable than their own. Moreover, they are already in the mode of: “in retrospect, there are some significant problems with the plan.”
Learning is often hard. And slow. And relative. Considering where this guy started, and how long he has been there, I’ve gotta say that he has learned A LOT over the past few months. And he has acted on some of it. I aspire to be more willing to acknowledge and celebrate that, even while acknowledging and lamenting the miles to go.
ps, I’m a he/his/him.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
That’s about par for a French minister.
A lot of the French political leadership of all parties have been Americo-sceptic for a long time.
What’s really shocking, if you know the history, is a German Christian Democrat ie Merz saying “we can no longer rely on the US”
This is massive: Germany in general, and the CDU in particular, have since the late 1940’s based their entire worldview on the Atlantic Alliance and “Americanism”.
It was always the big difference between France and Germany in international policy, and why the UK could often align with Germany vs France in such matters.
Same applies re. Australia, which has since 1941 cleaved to the US alliance as a foundational policy.
Trump is destroying many of the basic pillars of the post-WW2 alliance system.
There seems to be an assumption among the MAGA that all must kneel before the Orange Imperator, because reasons.
The thing is, a lot of people are disinclined to kneel before an untrustworthy fool, when said fool has already shafted them, for no good reason.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Indeed, if Xi were more calculatingly flexible, there would be major opportunities for China.
But he seems to be an old man set in his ways; and the CCP doctrine is also a massive inertia factor.
So China keeps on doing stupid “wolf warrior” things like grabbing a islet in Philippines waters.
Not to mention attending the Russian May 9 “Victory Parade”.
Thus wrecking any (remote) chance of being an alternative alliance option for Europe.
The only thing that may save the US from utter foreign policy meltdown is the short-sightedness of Beijing.
@JohnSF: Xi is obsessed with disconnecting his society from western culture just as much as Putin or the Iranian Ayatollahs, but even more dependant on western markets, but with less energy resources. 1.3 billion is a lot of mouths to feed.
@Rob1:
This.
Putin and Xi want the benefits of connection without the domestic political downsides.
And seem to think they can obtain that by coercive force, both domestic and foreign.
What they overlook is that coercion tends to produce push-back, internationally, and to lead to political failure internally
And this is why Trump’s dictator fanboi mindset is so silly: pluralist polities are ultimately more flexible, resilient, and, if it comes to it, more formidable and bloody-minded adversaries than most autocracies can ever hope to be.
See eg Ukraine vs Russia.
Or UK vs Germany in WW2.
The democratic and “decadent liberal” Brits became a total war machine far more efficient than the Nazis ever were.
China cannot disconnect from the West, so long as it requires massive material imports from Western, or West-aligned, states, and must export massively to pay for those imports.
This is how a rational US administration could curb China; and why the Trump approach is so self-defeating.
This just in: Will Trump declare war on Matty Mattel?
What’s the stupidest thing Trump will ever say? The world may never know. Now there are two questions with that answer. The first?
@JohnSF:
So have I. And I live here.
@Mimai: I really like what you are up to today. I’ve had all day to think about how to express my answer. Here it is:
The basic humanity and integrity of people like @Beth, @StormyDragon, Michael’s and my daughters, and anyone else in the “queer” space is not up for debate. I will not have that discussion. I am not interested in that discussion OR the equivalent discussion about black people or Native peoples, etc. If you want me to treat you like a human being, it needs to be reciprocal, both for me, and people I care about.
Trump did tariff China his first term. The only difference between then and now is a matter of degree.
Zero factories were built in the US as a result of those tariffs, and whatever revenue was generated from those tariffs was more than cancelled out by the bailout paid to the farmers who suffered as a result of China’s equal-and-opposite response to those tariffs. Those tariffs never left under Biden.
So, Trump had no reason to think his second round of tariffs on China would result in anything different — except that he was listening only to oblivious people permanently stuck in the world of 1950.
@JohnSF:
Truth, truthily truthed.
To paraphrase Dr. Suess, “Oh, the stories I could tell.” Preferably over a cold G&T or other libation.