5349

As the kids say, ikr?

And the reason they don’t care is because money. I mean, they see Trump and salivate and go “all those regulations and taxes that cost me money are about to go poof!” And they don’t give a shit that the ship of state sinks. I mean, literally. For huge numbers of “conservatives” it’s just about making more money. Trump is great, because Republicans are great, because they’ll lower my taxes and cut my regulations. Hillary is bad, because Hillary will raise my taxes and increase my regulations. Trump makes every woman feel like she’s being under assault by society, conspired with Russia to win an election,and is making money hand over fist from the government on his own properties? Eh, whatever.

I’ve come to realize that essentially conservatism is about offloading as many costs onto others (gov’t, public, investment partners, ect) as you can legally get away with while happily taking advantage of every possible public source of revenue available. It’s a conscious or unconscious grift and shifting of responsibility, it’s seeing the existing regulatory environment as a state of nature, and government regulations as nothing but an obstacles to be overcome or a system to be gamed.

My personal favorite example of this are Salt Water Disposal operations (SWD wells). Salt-water is a catch-all term for produced water recovered from drilling operations. Horizontal fracs demand huge amounts of water, and most of that water is recovered “tainted” by connate water (water in-place in the formation), chemicals, hydrocarbons, and other crap. Dumping it on the ground - which they’d happily do - is forbidden by regulators. So you have to re-inject it into a nonproducing formation to “dispose” of it. Not a problem, right? Except that doing this by truck, in the quantities required, means hundreds of transport truck trips per horizontal well. This means that these transports, heavy equipment loaded with water, are going to rip up the roads. The “Conservative” solution? Always, always put SWD sites next to public roads. If trucks dumping water at your SWD completely ruin the road, eh, not my problem! Let the public pay for it, i pay enough in taxes already! They don’t see their essential operations are premised and not even possible without a common good like highways, but see very clearly that building and maintaining there own roads would be prohibitively expensive. Most of them are probably completely unaware of the cognitive dissonance.

5350

This. Every conservative I know thinks The Clinton Foundation is a corrupt slush fund, and that most of the donations go right into Hillary’s bank account. They’re certain of this.

5351

My uncle was going off about how Trump has been great for the economy because his 401k is doing great because Trump made the stock market grow.

I then pointed out the state of the market when Obama took office, and how it tripled under his term.

I showed him the official DOW Jones chart.

He flat out said he didn’t believe me, and that the economy did not grow under Obama.

What the actual fuck.

5352

Tump supporter: Evidence as Oil: Water

5353

It’s surprising because we think of humans as rationale beings who perceive facts and events truly, then make conscious decisions based on those facts.

I don’t think actual human minds work anything like that.

5354

No, they don’t.

Humans are capable of rational thought in the way that they are capable of playing the piano, but it’s not something that just happens instinctively. Instinctive human thought is awash with logical fallacies, though it usually serves well enough in the meat-and-potatoes day-to-day.

5355

This is damn near every Fox News conservative I know right now.

  • The economy sucked under Obama
  • Unemployment was the highest ever under Obama
  • Taxes are the highest they’ve ever been thanks to Obama
  • Millions of illegal immigrants voted in the 2016 election
  • Illegal Immigrants have taken millions of American jobs
  • Nearly all crime in the Southern United States is committed by illegal immigrants (or, of course, “the blacks”), and it’s creeping slowly northwards

Despite the fact that all of these “facts” (and so many, many more) are easily disprovable, the people who spout them refuse to believe anything else. A steady diet of a decade of right wing Conservative News Media coupled with a conservative echo chamber in their social media (their Facebook posts make me want to punch them, in the face, repeatedly) have brainwashed these folks into believing that the GOP is their Lord God and Savior and America must be saved and reborn.

No amount of real world evidence, proof or even having their own lives negatively impacted by GOP bullshit is going to change their minds. With apologies to your uncle, if someone’s sources for “facts” are Fox and Friends, Infowars and Facebook memes, they’re either too racist or too stupid to be a viable part of the political process and should probably have their voting rights suspended.

insert Kermit “But that’s none of my business” meme here
(I fucking hate that meme)

5356

Good, good. Let the hate flow through you, Slainte!

5357

He is, in many ways, what represents everything wrong with politics in our country.

My response was you don’t live in reality, and your head is shoved up your ass. So no wonder you spew shit.

Thing is we have a pretty good relationship otherwise, but when it gets to politics he’s infuriating. At once saying I don’t know what I’m talking about, that my evidence is wrong, yet consistently conceding I am both smarter, and more knowledgeable on pretty much every subject.

5358

Well you gatdamn librul elites ent in power no murr, y’all hear??

5359

Sounds much like my mother-in-law. She is the sweetest lady, but when all your political knowledge comes from your old lady friends’ Facebook shares, you really should sit out the political discussions at the table.

5360

My favorite thing. Family members tell me I’m a fucking genius and so smart. I point out something factual to them, they tell me I’m a stupid liberal. You just told me that you’re not that bright and that I’m way smarter than you, but I guess that’s until I tell you that you are wrong?

5361

It’s the one thing that extreme far-edge SJWs and nutjob conservatives have in common: Facts have no place in a discussion between two people!

5362

The Horseshoe Theory of politics holds true

5363

So obviously he is using the presidency to make more money from them. Without knowing for sure I am willing to say that the clubs Trump operates were making a killing for him already. You can’t put more people on a golf course and you don’t add to a full membership at a country club. When it is full, it is full.

5364

From what i recall his clubs were not in fact doing all that great, but membership dues doubled overnight and membership increased when he became President.

Country clubs as networks are absolutely a thing, but they tend to be local or regional things (the Great and the Good for a particular city), tend in fact to be heavily biased toward particular industries when there’s more than one in an area (doctors may not go to the same as trust brats, for ex), and gaudy and gauche Trump-brand country clubs are not where the rich and famous congregate, and if they’re doing so now it’s literally only for access.

5365

Knowing the locations of many of them I would think they have only wealthy clientele. However, the ability to do as you describe does exist for a privately owned country club compared to the more common group owned country club.
But I think bitching about rich guys playing golf and getting business access is nothing new.

Now if he required all US business travel to use his hotels or resorts and would only meet with people who stayed there then I would join in the bitching.

5366

That’s nothing new. Doing it to get access to the President of the United States while he gets the money is.

Jimmy Carter had to give up a peanut farm, but Trump can keep an empire of hotels and resorts so that it’s easy for anyone to funnel him cash.

5367

But again, though, he owns the club. It’s one thing if GW Bush goes to River Oaks Country Club in Houston (or the Petroleum Club in Midland, TX) and people joined to be near him, because those are community institutions that preceded him and will outlive him. It’s another to own the Country Club entirely. Then the access has nothing to do with actually personal access - getting a word edgewise during Sunday Brunch - but literally going up to him with a membership card and a wink saying you bought all your family memberships, and would you have a minute to talk about repealing some environmental laws?

5368

You know what, of all the shit Trump can do to this country I really don’t care if his courses make money. Making Carter get rid of his peanuts was stupid as well. In fact in a world where leaders increasingly have business interests I think it is difficult to expect a complete divorce from those interests. Now I would grant there would be exceptions.