It’s absurd that people think trump has any sort of “business acumen.” His businesses fail more often than they succeed. He’s been busted for fraud multiple times. Filed for bankruptcy multiple times. Sued for failing to pay contractors hundreds of times. Banks refused to lend him money. His contemporaries call him the dumbest person they’ve ever met.
It’s absurd that people think trump has any sort of “business acumen.”
He played a successful businessman on a reality TV show. That's it, that's why people think he knows what he's doing, because they evidently can't tell the difference between fiction and reality.
That's the thing he's actually good at. Acting. Getting people to believe in fiction. It's a good trait for an actor, a despicable power of conmen, and horrifying in a leader.
I would argue Trump has great business acumen for exactly the reasons you describe.
He’s a mobster who got rich off strong arming, manipulation, and fraud.
Stop assuming his incompetence at being an evil capitalist billionaire and maybe people will finally accept that he is a highly capable amoral danger to the world.
Heard. I also feel somewhat comforted that this was a person who voted for Trump. Just a guy who wanted to make the world better, and yet made a shitty decision... not a Nazi.
It‘s so weird man. They say the government needs fixing but then vote for unhinged deregulation from the guy with the catch phrase „you‘re fired“.
That‘s like saying your roof needs fixing so you call a demolition company to tear your house down. What the hell did you expect would happen?
Honestly I think so many people are too misinformed or distracted to vote. I would genuinely suggest they stay out of the democratic process for their own good and peace of mind. They will only regret it anyway.
We have an electoral college. The entire reason they exist was to prevent an uneducated electorate from electing a tyanical demagogue. And yet here we are. Because the electoral college is made out of THE SAME UNEDUCATED MASSES. How was that supposed to work?
The problem is, these people think they're informed because they binge watch Fox News, which is actively lying to them. To follow your analogy, the demolition company was running commercials 24/7 saying they're the best roof fixers in town.
Don't get the impression that I'm defending these dumb fucks for voting the way they did. I just wanted to say we're never getting rid of this problem when people live in their media bubbles that blatantly hide the truth from them.
Demolition company: When we're done, you'll never need to worry about a leaky roof again!
Every Fox News watcher: omg, amazing deal!
The issue isn't Fox News itself or the lies they tell, it's the viewer's inability to process information into logical truths.
Fox News simply has no moral issue with lying to them. If you pay attention to what people complain about when it comes to the left, it's their reluctance to lie to people.
Works for IRS, thinks Trump has an iota of business acumen. Dude deserved to be fired whether he voted for Agent Orange or not.
If you look at Trump business history and think he’s a good businessman you have no place at the IRS. Hopefully this dude didn’t work for Criminal Investigation.
It still doesn't cease to amaze me how absolutely clueless some people can be. How can you observe Trump's behaviour and think he'll do anything except be insane? He can't even form coherent sentences for goodness' sake!
I hope this moron, and all his Trump pals, lose everything.
they arent just uninformed... they are brainwashed. you dont just snap out of it. you cant logic yourself out of a position you did not logic yourself into
its like trying to convince someone that their religion is garbage. no matter what evidence you provide, their brain will work around it.
For the people who consume conservative media, it has not stopped since then. That’s why they are SO brainwashed into accepting the most ridiculous shit they’re told.
I think a huge problem is that a significant part of the population has poor long term memory. I saw interviews before the election where they asked voters and the ones who were pro Trump always talked about how he was a good businessman. They had completely forgotten that 4 years earlier they had to fight for toilet paper under Trump. A friend said before the election, "Biden was the worst President ever." "Did you forget that you had no toilet paper?" "Oh, yeah."
Lots of conservatives living in the sprawling public sector bureaucracy see all sorts of dysfunction and waste, then conclude "this is because government" rather than "this is because efficient management is delicate and difficult".
Lots of leftists living in the sprawling private sector feel the same way (myself among them) and - self-confessed naively - will insist profit motive is the reason bad policy exists, rather than simple human fallibility at industrial scale.
Also, public bureaucracy is something of a patronage system, with people getting their jobs relative to their social networks. In a big red state like Texas or Florida or Ohio, you can guarantee the local IRS office is going to be full of failsons and faildaughters of the Republican elected bureaucracy.
So many Trump supporters just don't pay attention to anything. For decades before 2016, it was super common knowledge that Trump was a terrible businessman. It was a common joke on late night TV any time Trump was in the news. It was essentially the main thing people knew about him since the 1990s, yet his supporters all think he must be some business genius. And how they still think this after his first term, I have no idea.
It never occurred to them that he was so bad at his job that he had to take a job working for a Hollywood studio pretending to be a successful businessman hiring people for a job that never existed. There was never any situation in which anyone was fired from anything.
The TV show THE APPRENTICE was filmed and edited to portray Trump as a MASTER OF BUSINESS. People who worked behind the scenes of the show have commented on some of the stupid decisions he made, and how they were always covering it with edits to make it look like a wise decisions after the fact..
Aside from being brainwashed into MAGA he sounds like a solid dude. He saw a problem in his country and took it upon himself to try to fix it. Too bad he wanted leopards to eat his face
I agree 100%. I kinda have to believe people like this can get better because I have good people in my family whose actions and political beliefs are entirely at odds with each other.
Fuck the Murdoch dynasty, all of them. Knowing that people I care about have spent decades watching a 4-hour evening infomercial for fascism is brutal.
Same with friends. But it's so hopeless trying to get through to them. I know their feeds are filled with "LIBERAL TEARS, IMMIGRANTS BECOMES MILLIONAIRE WITH FOOD STAMPS AND HERES WHY WHITE PEOPLE ARE THE ACTUAL VICTIMS" They see it on their YouTube. Their Twitter. Their Facebook. Their Instagram. Their FOX (self described non news "entertainment" channel) NEWS app. They're getting hit with propaganda from everywhere, not even counting the decades of Fox that's infected their family. They're so incredibly misinformed and I don't know what way to change their minds. Some times they'll listen but it never sticks, probably the same way I do when they're telling me how democrats actually set up any bad thing that happens.
Take specific examples that they care about, prove that it is utter nonsense. Ask how they can still believe all the bullshit if all these examples are nonsense.
They are usually Christians so using Bible versus right back at them and asking when they are going to divorce their spouses and cheat on them and pay for prostitutes and playing up when they decided they support authoritarian communists and where they keep their Russian flags is probably the route to go. They'll love being labeled communiats and since when they started wanting to emulate the Chinese political system.
Facts, laws, and numbers don't work on them. Comparing their values to the person they choose to worship is more likely to get them scrambling trying to excuse behavior that isn't Christian like.
In the end, my receipts don't matter. It's fake news. The closest I can get is to make my points using FOX NEWS articles. But there's often a shit ton of spin on those so I can't get the really hard hitting facts across. Best example was my trumper friend saying that ICE is going after criminal immigrants and not the good, working ones. I linked the fox news article saying that the ICE commander said everyone's on the chopping block. I was met with "No, no they can't do that. They can't do that. They won't do that". They literally live in their own made up reality where the rules are how they interpret them and not how they actually are. Even when their glorified party proves them wrong, time and time again.
God bless my buddy's hearts. They're good people but theyre actively getting corrupted and I'm trying at every chance I get to give them a different perspective.
These people are not equipped to handle the cognitive dissonance of having their beliefs challenged. They will simply compartmentalize away any contradictions so they don't have to think about it. If you try to force the issue they become vitriolic and refuse to engage with you any further, usually resorting to character defamation to label you as someone who is not trustworthy and can be readily disregarded.
A solid dude? He voted for the guy who incited a coup attempt, mismanaged the COVID response, and spews verbal diarrhea daily. I hate to say it, but they called it right for this guy, we don't need people who are that stupid in government.
How could anyone trust the business acumen of someone who bankrupted his own casino? The business model of a casino is people walk in, give you all their money, then leave. That was too much for him.
By opening a second casino on the same road, splitting the public between the two, which led to BOTH going bankrupt, despite a cash injection from his father. Yes, he bankrupted TWO casinos...
I can totally believe that someone who's never worked in the private sector has such a fanciful view of how layoffs work. My first job out of college was in the government. My views of what constituted "waste" were hilarious, like we got a flashlight (because we occasionally would go outside at night) and it was definitely a pricier flashlight, with some features we didn't really need. I told my friends at home, "Gosh, the government is so wasteful, look at this overpriced flashlight I got". Of course they made me turn it in when I left, but still.
Then when I got into the private sector I realized private sector waste is a whole different animal. Obviously there's the insane CEO pay packages, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Definitely I've seen some multi-million-dollar projects that never should have happened and were just the result of our slick salespeople. When I left one job in a layoff I had no way of returning a $3000 laptop because the person I'd return it to was laid off too. It ended up being a nice gift for an amoral friend. Of course layoffs themselves are crazy wasteful, you have tons of hard-earned knowledge walking out the door. They're almost always random and driven by a desire to temporarily boost the stock price as clueless shareholders are left holding the bag when the company collapses a few years later.
Point is government waste exists, but it's like a leaky faucet that drips a little. In the private sector, it's like a faucet that's constantly running on full blast because everyone is incentivized to maximize the rate of flow.
Fuck this guy. Fuck his friends, fuck all of his family members who haven't disowned him yet, fuck anybody who looks like him. Fuck everything about him.
This piece of shit voted for this, and now is upset simply because his livelihood is affected. No lessons were learnt. No lessons will ever be learned. He is but a symptom of the cancerous rot at the core of our so-called Democracy.
Edit: Fuck any fucking cowards who downvote this without providing a response as to why they disagree.
I only downvoted because of the "fuck anybody who looks like him" (and am only saying this because you asked people to tell you). Otherwise, I totally agree with the sentiment! People who never learn their lesson are the most frustrating
I suppose that's fair. It was mostly hyperbole, tbh. I am not cheesed off at people who literally look like the scum-sucking piece of shit in the article. It just sounded good.
Your blame is misplaced. You appear think this is the fault of random people who wear different color hats instead of the result of decades of effort by some of the richest people in our society to fundamentally weaken democracy and to create uneducated people that can be manipulated.
You're blaming the other members of your class that are the victims of decades of educational failure and indoctrination instead of the people who knowingly implemented those policies looking for this specific result.
It's a narrow minded and short-sighted way of looking at things; and, in addition, your tribalistic rhetoric only serves to increase the division among the working class further aiding the people who seek to profit from this division.
It's one thing to be frustrated, but ignorance is how we got here and we downvote you because we don't need more ignorance even if it's coming from someone wearing a blue hat instead of a red one.
Maybe, but it’s inconceivable that not understanding more about Trump is simple ignorance. The one thing the guy has always been good at is grabbing headlines. How can you possibly live through decades of headlines, a prior term in the Oval Office, all those campaign rallies, all sorts of chaos and outrage, and still be ignorant?
Because there's an entire alternate reality built by right wing news sources that exist specifically to create confusion and spread misinformation.
It used to be a joke that Fox News was so unaligned with reality. It's less funny now that there is an entire media ecosystem that supports this alternate reality.
This is why you see people thinking that Trump is a great businessman. Because according to everything that they see and hear, he is. They were never equipped with the media literacy to counteract the weaponized psychology that's used to target them with political lies and spin.
By the time any individual encounters reality in a way that is undeniable (like the ex-IRS employee) it's too late.
They're just a tiny voice in an ocean of lies. If they try to talk about their experiences on right-wing social media they'll be labeled as a left-wing plant or banned outright. The right-wing media won't cover their story or repeat their concerns. It'll continue repeating the lies and spin like it always has and that person will finally understand Martin Niemöller's poem.
ive tried getting people on here to understand that nixons fall led directly to a trump presidency. it was in his wake that the rich knew controlling the media was paramount, and subsequently the creation of fox news and its ecosystem.
but its common for users here to only see the human that pushed the trump button as willfully ignorant instead of the brainwashed pawns they are.
So what now, they bear no responsibility just due to being brainwashed? Then I have a bridge to sell you: there are no criminals, everyone is innocent. Why? Because most of the time our brain makes a decision before we even become conscious of it. So mr. judge, I did not kill an old lady, it's just my brain. Surely you can't give me a sentence for something I did not do willfully?
no, no one is saying that at all. the world is not as black and white as you are implying. you sound like youre 12 and have zero understanding of the human condition.
can we hold voters accountable for electing a fascist? yep. can we understand how they came to be in that position so we can prevent it? you betcha. the interplay of emotion, intellect and responsibility is not a zero sum game.
except that I am three times that age, having spend at least last twelve years looking exactly at how emotion and intellect work and how to make all this play well
and what I see on lemmy is this: every time someone shows well-deserved anger at idiots who made this terror happen(make no mistake, just because we can sit relatively comfortable and just argue on internet, many people experience their lives getting torn apart), there comes someone with the you-cant-just-blame-them attitude, and all that does it "don't be mad at them, chill"
Well, no. How they came to be this way? Exactly this is how: they. came. to be this way. Same way neither of us did: making choices. Now is not the time to sit and think of how education and whatnot should have been. Now is the time to act.
Do they not listen to Trumps own words? Maybe that wouldn’t give away the failed real estate conman background but most of these regret articles talk about things that Trump plainly said. Then it shouldn’t take much listening to his words before you understand it’s entirely BS
no they really dont. a huge portion of trump voters dont listen to anything. they dont watch 'news'. they dont watch 'social media'. they passively accept the words they hear around them in the office, the bar, the laundromat. they are severely uninformed swimming in a sea of misinformation.
its like that old joke.. an old gold fish passes two young goldfish in a pond.. the old gold fish says 'morning boys, hows the water'.. the young goldfish look at each other and one says 'what the hell is water?'.
just because something is very obvious to you, doesnt mean it is to someone else.
It's interesting that you mention Martin Niemöller. He, like all of the MAGATs getting their faces chewed off by their elected leopard, was a giant piece of shit. His poem wasn't some clarion call to people who saw the danger of the Nazi party... he was a Nazi. He was a big fan of the Nazis and their agenda. Dude straight up hated the Jews. He only fell afoul of the party's agenda when they started coming after protestant churches, as he was a pastor.
I don't feel bad for the Martin Niemöllers of the world, and I don't feel bad for any person who allows themselves to be duped by obvious conmen. The fact that they gain some measure of enlightenment only after they reach the "find out" stage of the FAFO cycle does not in any way elicit sympathy from me.
Look - we're at a unique point in our history; information is more free and available than at any time before. Anything that someone wants to find out about practically any subject is just a couple of clicks away. The fact that we're still so shitty and ignorant is a never-ending source of frustration for me.
You appear think this is the fault of random people who wear different color hats instead of the result of decades of effort by some of the richest people in our society to fundamentally weaken democracy and to create uneducated people that can be manipulated.
I can assure you I do not, regardless of what you think the appearances are. I fully understand that this is the result of a systematic approach of the Republican party working as stooges of think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation.
That being said, my anger is most certainly NOT misplaced. For example, I can acknowledge that crime is often a result of poverty and desperation, and yet still be angry at a person who steals my stereo. People have the capacity to be more than just the result of the machinations of others. Not holding them to blame for their actions is anathema to me.
Also, I'm returning the favor and downvoting you for the ignorance you displayed in assuming my motives.
Nah, you are just trying to shift the responsibility. If my brain gets washed with indoctrination, it is my responsibility. You want what, just go "these millions of human individuals actually supporting evil bastards are innocent and ignorant, only those bastards are to blame"?
Fuck this shit, this is not how it works
no we arent. if thats all you took from that, youre not capable of the critical thinking required to understand how we got here. i hope someday you can. good luck.
I lost faith in the standards of our government employees after that one clerk was found to be repeatedly refusing to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.
It's so incredible that so many people can't tell how clueless Trump is. The only reason he's ever "effective" is because he's a total wildcard since he has absolutely no fucking idea what is happening.
Why people regard Trump as good businessman? Bunch of his shit went bankrupt because he's so "excellent". Same as with Elon. Everyone treats him as genius. He's a moron who hires actual smart people and then take credit for their work. And everything is always ultra late, over budget or never materialized. And now these two bozos work together to "fix" US government that has been functioning perfectly well for 300+ years.
It's wild watching people who don't consider themselves fascist kind of just cheering for it, because as with everything our government does, 50% don't care how cruel it is as long as said cruelty is pointed in the right direction. (Or what they think is the right direction.)
It's hardly willful. The media machine that got Trump through the door has been a hundred billion dollar multi-generational campaign dating back to the Nixon Administration.
Roger Ailes, Paul Weyrich, and James Dobson dedicated their collective careers to guaranteeing a large section of the US population would be deluged with fascist propaganda. And Sheldon Adelson, Robert Mercer, the Koch Family, the Ford Family, the hiers to the Hoover Institute, and a few dozen other riechwing billionaires financed their efforts.
This isn't just dumb people all stupidly flipping the Trump switch by coincidence. It's the product of sustained industrial tier media manipulation by people whose personal fortunes are predicated on misinformation.
Goes back further than that to the post-war era with the dismantling of the union movement and oppression of left wing voices due to the 2nd Red Scare/McCarthyism
Coming in with a wrecking ball is the "business acumen" i.e. sucking out as much money as possible, taking credit for any perceived successes, and passing out blame for any perceived failures. The entire point of business is to enrich the businessman. They're idolized when they really should be recognized as the parasites they actually are.
Right?! My dude, bringing in a wrecking ball and ruining people's lives is the reason. Trump isn't a stable genius, he's a geriatric lunatic who's been given the keys to the asylum.
I wish I could say I created this image, but alas, there are people more talented than me on the Internet. My head cannon says the amount of jpeg is intentional and definitely a highlight!
It is called "coping". At the back of their minds, they know they got it wrong but are too proud to admit it. So, they double down instead and engaging in sunk cost fallacy.
His "business acumen" is hostile takeover style from the 80s-90s. If the guy really studied up he would've known those types come in and slash and burn. No one is spared. They squeeze the juice out until a company is "lean and mean" and attractive to investors that want to liquidate or restart without old guard getting in the way. What a dummy.
Side note: I am banned from conservative subs, but my last comment there was responded with "conservatism is a necessary counterpoint to progressivism" and can somebody tell me ANY conservative policies that were for the good of humanity? Because all I see is a severely mentally ill bunch of fucking psychopaths that do nothing but destroy freedom and anything at all good for humanity.
Yes and no. Conservatism is supposed to be (ideally, in theory) a ratchet that keeps the wheel from freely spinning in either direction. Conservatives are to preserve the status quo, which is the position currently taken by Democrats and not Republicans. We don't have a counterbalance to the Repubs, which is why the wheel is slowly clicking to the right.
I used to assume this was more 'both sides are the same' shit but looking at how fast Trump is moving while the democrats spent years getting very little done really puts it into perspective.
oh no, I know Trump and the republicans are much, much worse. I know that they are so terrible, that any vote to keep them out of office is better then to not vote "out of protest".
I've just also been paying attention long enough to be cynical about the democrats. I remember when the democrats had majority during Obama, but a hand full of sellouts would play hot-potato voting against any progressive movement. Any one of them would vote for progress most of the time, but enough of them voted against that noting ever got done.
So if we had a truly progressive party in power conservatives job would be saying can we afford this, what would the impacts be, why do we need to do this thing, why is the status quo not good etc etc. Then they are suppose to listen to reason, trial out big changes, adapt, and let the future go forward making sure the small man and traditionalists aren't left behind.
Instead conservatives are about changing the climate, culture, and environment to hurt others or hold back common sense things that make people equal.
at best, they will tell you 'i just want my tax dollars/government to be efficient' but we see how that actually plays out with regards to the oligarchy taking control.
It’s always so sad and absurdly funny at the same time that real people think like this. I can’t help but laugh and then just rethink about my life yet again.
I remember listening to a news podcast and I don't recall if it was an idea of the GOP, heritage, musk, bolsonaro (who they're taking cues from) but one idea was fire all employees with an even number ID. Easy way to get half the staff. I'm still expecting that kind of "fine tooth comb" because so far they're just going after the easy starting point: asking people to resign and probationary workers.
Never dealt with any business type person who did anything "with a fine tooth comb". It's always "just tear it out and replace it with my thing, it'll be fine". It's never fine but they're so far above the mess that it doesn't affect them so who gives a shit.
If we ever have a vote again. Yeah. 100% because he'll once again think the GOP is just so great on the economy. DOW is down 750 points at the moment if anyone is wondering how absolute chaos effects the stock market.
This guy was the real stain on his department, meanwhile you had other feds trying to hold the line against this happening to all of them, while this guy is blindly trusting that he'll be the exception. Idiot.
In companies like these it's better to call IT (or HR) and wait for instructions.
If you go around annoying all your superiors then you're just wasting everybody's time instead of only your own. Plus they would just tell you to wait for IT (or HR) instead.
It’s absurd that people think trump has any sort of “business acumen.” His businesses fail more often than they succeed. He’s been busted for fraud multiple times. Filed for bankruptcy multiple times. Sued for failing to pay contractors hundreds of times. Banks refused to lend him money. His contemporaries call him the dumbest person they’ve ever met.
He played a successful businessman on a reality TV show. That's it, that's why people think he knows what he's doing, because they evidently can't tell the difference between fiction and reality.
That's the thing he's actually good at. Acting. Getting people to believe in fiction. It's a good trait for an actor, a despicable power of conmen, and horrifying in a leader.
Some of these were even for his casinos. He couldn’t even get casinos right.
TV needed a star for a show and created a story that he was a great businessman. All the real successful businessman were busy, true story.
This is after borrowing millions from The Bank of Daddy. Without his parents wealth, he'd be nothing.
Apparently they've never met his supporters.
I would argue Trump has great business acumen for exactly the reasons you describe.
He’s a mobster who got rich off strong arming, manipulation, and fraud.
Stop assuming his incompetence at being an evil capitalist billionaire and maybe people will finally accept that he is a highly capable amoral danger to the world.
"his business acumen" is exactly what you're getting, bub.
I findt it highly disturbing someone this stupid worked for the IRS in the first place.
Before anyone says their "strategy" is working, a broken clock still tells the right time twice a day.
Heard. I also feel somewhat comforted that this was a person who voted for Trump. Just a guy who wanted to make the world better, and yet made a shitty decision... not a Nazi.
Edit: ...Er, probably not a Nazi.
It‘s so weird man. They say the government needs fixing but then vote for unhinged deregulation from the guy with the catch phrase „you‘re fired“.
That‘s like saying your roof needs fixing so you call a demolition company to tear your house down. What the hell did you expect would happen?
Honestly I think so many people are too misinformed or distracted to vote. I would genuinely suggest they stay out of the democratic process for their own good and peace of mind. They will only regret it anyway.
We have an electoral college. The entire reason they exist was to prevent an uneducated electorate from electing a tyanical demagogue. And yet here we are. Because the electoral college is made out of THE SAME UNEDUCATED MASSES. How was that supposed to work?
The problem is, these people think they're informed because they binge watch Fox News, which is actively lying to them. To follow your analogy, the demolition company was running commercials 24/7 saying they're the best roof fixers in town.
Don't get the impression that I'm defending these dumb fucks for voting the way they did. I just wanted to say we're never getting rid of this problem when people live in their media bubbles that blatantly hide the truth from them.
Demolition company: When we're done, you'll never need to worry about a leaky roof again!
Every Fox News watcher: omg, amazing deal!
The issue isn't Fox News itself or the lies they tell, it's the viewer's inability to process information into logical truths.
Fox News simply has no moral issue with lying to them. If you pay attention to what people complain about when it comes to the left, it's their reluctance to lie to people.
Most people prefer comforting lies.
But then what would happen with the immigrants eating people's pets in Springfield?
Whatever happened with that anyway? Hmmm.
Works for IRS, thinks Trump has an iota of business acumen. Dude deserved to be fired whether he voted for Agent Orange or not.
If you look at Trump business history and think he’s a good businessman you have no place at the IRS. Hopefully this dude didn’t work for Criminal Investigation.
And he kind of has trouble putting coherent sentences together.
It still doesn't cease to amaze me how absolutely clueless some people can be. How can you observe Trump's behaviour and think he'll do anything except be insane? He can't even form coherent sentences for goodness' sake!
I hope this moron, and all his Trump pals, lose everything.
Imagine thinking Trump has business acumen.
they arent just uninformed... they are brainwashed. you dont just snap out of it. you cant logic yourself out of a position you did not logic yourself into
its like trying to convince someone that their religion is garbage. no matter what evidence you provide, their brain will work around it.
Yeah we've had a mass brainwashing in this country that we've never seen before and it's terrifying
I saw this before, right after 9/11.
For the people who consume conservative media, it has not stopped since then. That’s why they are SO brainwashed into accepting the most ridiculous shit they’re told.
I remember A LOT of racism toward anyone that even looked middle eastern.
The United States is a VERY racist nation.
I think a huge problem is that a significant part of the population has poor long term memory. I saw interviews before the election where they asked voters and the ones who were pro Trump always talked about how he was a good businessman. They had completely forgotten that 4 years earlier they had to fight for toilet paper under Trump. A friend said before the election, "Biden was the worst President ever." "Did you forget that you had no toilet paper?" "Oh, yeah."
No memory.
It's all about hate. His supporters are full of hate and that overrides any semblance of common sense.
"Government should be run as a business" means everybody has to do as you say because you're the boss.
”Government should be run as a business” means people are getting fired just so the top can buy more yachts for themselves.
Imagine being an IRS employee and voting Republican in literally anything. Like seriously what the fuck?
Lots of conservatives living in the sprawling public sector bureaucracy see all sorts of dysfunction and waste, then conclude "this is because government" rather than "this is because efficient management is delicate and difficult".
Lots of leftists living in the sprawling private sector feel the same way (myself among them) and - self-confessed naively - will insist profit motive is the reason bad policy exists, rather than simple human fallibility at industrial scale.
Also, public bureaucracy is something of a patronage system, with people getting their jobs relative to their social networks. In a big red state like Texas or Florida or Ohio, you can guarantee the local IRS office is going to be full of failsons and faildaughters of the Republican elected bureaucracy.
That's an angle I hadn't considered. That makes a lot of sense.
"Someone with his business acumen..."
Holy shit. I imagine this person has an open fucking head wound and a keyboard covered in drool. Holy shit.
With time, you forget just how desperate, unequipped for life and dangerously myopic these people are.
So many Trump supporters just don't pay attention to anything. For decades before 2016, it was super common knowledge that Trump was a terrible businessman. It was a common joke on late night TV any time Trump was in the news. It was essentially the main thing people knew about him since the 1990s, yet his supporters all think he must be some business genius. And how they still think this after his first term, I have no idea.
It never occurred to them that he was so bad at his job that he had to take a job working for a Hollywood studio pretending to be a successful businessman hiring people for a job that never existed. There was never any situation in which anyone was fired from anything.
The TV show THE APPRENTICE was filmed and edited to portray Trump as a MASTER OF BUSINESS. People who worked behind the scenes of the show have commented on some of the stupid decisions he made, and how they were always covering it with edits to make it look like a wise decisions after the fact..
https://www.thewrap.com/donald-trump-bad-firing-the-apprentice/
Aside from being brainwashed into MAGA he sounds like a solid dude. He saw a problem in his country and took it upon himself to try to fix it. Too bad he wanted leopards to eat his face
Though, I have realized that if you're still a Trump supporter, you're either ill informed or are a terrible person
I agree 100%. I kinda have to believe people like this can get better because I have good people in my family whose actions and political beliefs are entirely at odds with each other.
Fuck the Murdoch dynasty, all of them. Knowing that people I care about have spent decades watching a 4-hour evening infomercial for fascism is brutal.
Same with friends. But it's so hopeless trying to get through to them. I know their feeds are filled with "LIBERAL TEARS, IMMIGRANTS BECOMES MILLIONAIRE WITH FOOD STAMPS AND HERES WHY WHITE PEOPLE ARE THE ACTUAL VICTIMS" They see it on their YouTube. Their Twitter. Their Facebook. Their Instagram. Their FOX (self described non news "entertainment" channel) NEWS app. They're getting hit with propaganda from everywhere, not even counting the decades of Fox that's infected their family. They're so incredibly misinformed and I don't know what way to change their minds. Some times they'll listen but it never sticks, probably the same way I do when they're telling me how democrats actually set up any bad thing that happens.
Fox News was just full time repeating that the border was over run with Hispanic men running around and raping all the white women.
Take specific examples that they care about, prove that it is utter nonsense. Ask how they can still believe all the bullshit if all these examples are nonsense.
They are usually Christians so using Bible versus right back at them and asking when they are going to divorce their spouses and cheat on them and pay for prostitutes and playing up when they decided they support authoritarian communists and where they keep their Russian flags is probably the route to go. They'll love being labeled communiats and since when they started wanting to emulate the Chinese political system.
Facts, laws, and numbers don't work on them. Comparing their values to the person they choose to worship is more likely to get them scrambling trying to excuse behavior that isn't Christian like.
Not in my experience. To many of these mfs worship Paul (and now Trump) instead of Jesus.
In the end, my receipts don't matter. It's fake news. The closest I can get is to make my points using FOX NEWS articles. But there's often a shit ton of spin on those so I can't get the really hard hitting facts across. Best example was my trumper friend saying that ICE is going after criminal immigrants and not the good, working ones. I linked the fox news article saying that the ICE commander said everyone's on the chopping block. I was met with "No, no they can't do that. They can't do that. They won't do that". They literally live in their own made up reality where the rules are how they interpret them and not how they actually are. Even when their glorified party proves them wrong, time and time again.
God bless my buddy's hearts. They're good people but theyre actively getting corrupted and I'm trying at every chance I get to give them a different perspective.
This.
These people are not equipped to handle the cognitive dissonance of having their beliefs challenged. They will simply compartmentalize away any contradictions so they don't have to think about it. If you try to force the issue they become vitriolic and refuse to engage with you any further, usually resorting to character defamation to label you as someone who is not trustworthy and can be readily disregarded.
The USA is literally threatening to invade most of its closest allies. Fuck anyone who's ill informed
"I didn't realise we were going to invade Poland :0"
"Actually you forgot Poland."
George W. BUSH
A solid dude? He voted for the guy who incited a coup attempt, mismanaged the COVID response, and spews verbal diarrhea daily. I hate to say it, but they called it right for this guy, we don't need people who are that stupid in government.
Lol, this is the best comment I've read all week. Thank you for giving me a good laugh, I needed it!
How could anyone trust the business acumen of someone who bankrupted his own casino? The business model of a casino is people walk in, give you all their money, then leave. That was too much for him.
Easy. They're braindead stupid. You have met dogs more intelligent than Trump supporters.
im pretty sure that entire endeavor was a money laundering scheme. it doesnt make any sense otherwise.
How the fuck do you bankrupt a casino?
By opening a second casino on the same road, splitting the public between the two, which led to BOTH going bankrupt, despite a cash injection from his father. Yes, he bankrupted TWO casinos...
spent more in building it >cough< than ever received as income from 'customers'.
at one point some rich fucker (might have been his own father) literally walked in 'bought' a shitload of chips (miilions of $) and never cashed them.
Business acumen? Neither the president nor trump have that
Yeah, they were both kinda born into it.
lol they still think this guy actually knows how to run businesses
How do you bankrupt a casino? 😂😂😂 Its literally free money 😂😂😂
Not just one. Four casinos
I can totally believe that someone who's never worked in the private sector has such a fanciful view of how layoffs work. My first job out of college was in the government. My views of what constituted "waste" were hilarious, like we got a flashlight (because we occasionally would go outside at night) and it was definitely a pricier flashlight, with some features we didn't really need. I told my friends at home, "Gosh, the government is so wasteful, look at this overpriced flashlight I got". Of course they made me turn it in when I left, but still.
Then when I got into the private sector I realized private sector waste is a whole different animal. Obviously there's the insane CEO pay packages, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Definitely I've seen some multi-million-dollar projects that never should have happened and were just the result of our slick salespeople. When I left one job in a layoff I had no way of returning a $3000 laptop because the person I'd return it to was laid off too. It ended up being a nice gift for an amoral friend. Of course layoffs themselves are crazy wasteful, you have tons of hard-earned knowledge walking out the door. They're almost always random and driven by a desire to temporarily boost the stock price as clueless shareholders are left holding the bag when the company collapses a few years later.
Point is government waste exists, but it's like a leaky faucet that drips a little. In the private sector, it's like a faucet that's constantly running on full blast because everyone is incentivized to maximize the rate of flow.
It’s because they can’t risk it not working and being blamed when someone trips in the dark
government is also not allowed to negotiate for discounts to minimize risk of corruption and has to pay sticker price
Fuck this guy. Fuck his friends, fuck all of his family members who haven't disowned him yet, fuck anybody who looks like him. Fuck everything about him.
This piece of shit voted for this, and now is upset simply because his livelihood is affected. No lessons were learnt. No lessons will ever be learned. He is but a symptom of the cancerous rot at the core of our so-called Democracy.
Edit: Fuck any fucking cowards who downvote this without providing a response as to why they disagree.
I only downvoted because of the "fuck anybody who looks like him" (and am only saying this because you asked people to tell you). Otherwise, I totally agree with the sentiment! People who never learn their lesson are the most frustrating
I suppose that's fair. It was mostly hyperbole, tbh. I am not cheesed off at people who literally look like the scum-sucking piece of shit in the article. It just sounded good.
Your blame is misplaced. You appear think this is the fault of random people who wear different color hats instead of the result of decades of effort by some of the richest people in our society to fundamentally weaken democracy and to create uneducated people that can be manipulated.
You're blaming the other members of your class that are the victims of decades of educational failure and indoctrination instead of the people who knowingly implemented those policies looking for this specific result.
It's a narrow minded and short-sighted way of looking at things; and, in addition, your tribalistic rhetoric only serves to increase the division among the working class further aiding the people who seek to profit from this division.
It's one thing to be frustrated, but ignorance is how we got here and we downvote you because we don't need more ignorance even if it's coming from someone wearing a blue hat instead of a red one.
Maybe, but it’s inconceivable that not understanding more about Trump is simple ignorance. The one thing the guy has always been good at is grabbing headlines. How can you possibly live through decades of headlines, a prior term in the Oval Office, all those campaign rallies, all sorts of chaos and outrage, and still be ignorant?
Because there's an entire alternate reality built by right wing news sources that exist specifically to create confusion and spread misinformation.
It used to be a joke that Fox News was so unaligned with reality. It's less funny now that there is an entire media ecosystem that supports this alternate reality.
This is why you see people thinking that Trump is a great businessman. Because according to everything that they see and hear, he is. They were never equipped with the media literacy to counteract the weaponized psychology that's used to target them with political lies and spin.
By the time any individual encounters reality in a way that is undeniable (like the ex-IRS employee) it's too late.
They're just a tiny voice in an ocean of lies. If they try to talk about their experiences on right-wing social media they'll be labeled as a left-wing plant or banned outright. The right-wing media won't cover their story or repeat their concerns. It'll continue repeating the lies and spin like it always has and that person will finally understand Martin Niemöller's poem.
ive tried getting people on here to understand that nixons fall led directly to a trump presidency. it was in his wake that the rich knew controlling the media was paramount, and subsequently the creation of fox news and its ecosystem.
but its common for users here to only see the human that pushed the trump button as willfully ignorant instead of the brainwashed pawns they are.
So what now, they bear no responsibility just due to being brainwashed? Then I have a bridge to sell you: there are no criminals, everyone is innocent. Why? Because most of the time our brain makes a decision before we even become conscious of it. So mr. judge, I did not kill an old lady, it's just my brain. Surely you can't give me a sentence for something I did not do willfully?
no, no one is saying that at all. the world is not as black and white as you are implying. you sound like youre 12 and have zero understanding of the human condition.
can we hold voters accountable for electing a fascist? yep. can we understand how they came to be in that position so we can prevent it? you betcha. the interplay of emotion, intellect and responsibility is not a zero sum game.
except that I am three times that age, having spend at least last twelve years looking exactly at how emotion and intellect work and how to make all this play well
and what I see on lemmy is this: every time someone shows well-deserved anger at idiots who made this terror happen(make no mistake, just because we can sit relatively comfortable and just argue on internet, many people experience their lives getting torn apart), there comes someone with the you-cant-just-blame-them attitude, and all that does it "don't be mad at them, chill"
Well, no. How they came to be this way? Exactly this is how: they. came. to be this way. Same way neither of us did: making choices. Now is not the time to sit and think of how education and whatnot should have been. Now is the time to act.
Do they not listen to Trumps own words? Maybe that wouldn’t give away the failed real estate conman background but most of these regret articles talk about things that Trump plainly said. Then it shouldn’t take much listening to his words before you understand it’s entirely BS
no they really dont. a huge portion of trump voters dont listen to anything. they dont watch 'news'. they dont watch 'social media'. they passively accept the words they hear around them in the office, the bar, the laundromat. they are severely uninformed swimming in a sea of misinformation.
its like that old joke.. an old gold fish passes two young goldfish in a pond.. the old gold fish says 'morning boys, hows the water'.. the young goldfish look at each other and one says 'what the hell is water?'.
just because something is very obvious to you, doesnt mean it is to someone else.
It's interesting that you mention Martin Niemöller. He, like all of the MAGATs getting their faces chewed off by their elected leopard, was a giant piece of shit. His poem wasn't some clarion call to people who saw the danger of the Nazi party... he was a Nazi. He was a big fan of the Nazis and their agenda. Dude straight up hated the Jews. He only fell afoul of the party's agenda when they started coming after protestant churches, as he was a pastor.
I don't feel bad for the Martin Niemöllers of the world, and I don't feel bad for any person who allows themselves to be duped by obvious conmen. The fact that they gain some measure of enlightenment only after they reach the "find out" stage of the FAFO cycle does not in any way elicit sympathy from me.
Look - we're at a unique point in our history; information is more free and available than at any time before. Anything that someone wants to find out about practically any subject is just a couple of clicks away. The fact that we're still so shitty and ignorant is a never-ending source of frustration for me.
I can assure you I do not, regardless of what you think the appearances are. I fully understand that this is the result of a systematic approach of the Republican party working as stooges of think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation.
That being said, my anger is most certainly NOT misplaced. For example, I can acknowledge that crime is often a result of poverty and desperation, and yet still be angry at a person who steals my stereo. People have the capacity to be more than just the result of the machinations of others. Not holding them to blame for their actions is anathema to me.
Also, I'm returning the favor and downvoting you for the ignorance you displayed in assuming my motives.
Nah, you are just trying to shift the responsibility. If my brain gets washed with indoctrination, it is my responsibility. You want what, just go "these millions of human individuals actually supporting evil bastards are innocent and ignorant, only those bastards are to blame"? Fuck this shit, this is not how it works
those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat it.
And the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. Are we now playing "quote some nonsense"?
no we arent. if thats all you took from that, youre not capable of the critical thinking required to understand how we got here. i hope someday you can. good luck.
Bravo. Such profound conversation. Go pet yourself on the back
It's time for him to sleep in the bed he made.
That’s funny because I thought somebody who works at the IRS would have skills like reading comprehension and functional eyes.
I lost faith in the standards of our government employees after that one clerk was found to be repeatedly refusing to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.
Kim Davis... I'm so proud she is from my state /s
Hope he suffers as much as possible for the suffering he has caused others.
It's so incredible that so many people can't tell how clueless Trump is. The only reason he's ever "effective" is because he's a total wildcard since he has absolutely no fucking idea what is happening.
Why people regard Trump as good businessman? Bunch of his shit went bankrupt because he's so "excellent". Same as with Elon. Everyone treats him as genius. He's a moron who hires actual smart people and then take credit for their work. And everything is always ultra late, over budget or never materialized. And now these two bozos work together to "fix" US government that has been functioning perfectly well for 300+ years.
Well, we might have a very different opinion of "perfectly well" but otherwise I agree.
I'd say the past 40 years have been set up to fail, but I don't trust the party of Reagan to fix the mess he started.
Because of The Apprentice.
"someone with his business acumen"
Ah, yes, you mean the sort of business acumen that makes a casino go bankrupt?
as using his casino to launder russian/soviet money around.
It's wild watching people who don't consider themselves fascist kind of just cheering for it, because as with everything our government does, 50% don't care how cruel it is as long as said cruelty is pointed in the right direction. (Or what they think is the right direction.)
Leopards are gonna have an obesity problem.
It's hardly willful. The media machine that got Trump through the door has been a hundred billion dollar multi-generational campaign dating back to the Nixon Administration.
Roger Ailes, Paul Weyrich, and James Dobson dedicated their collective careers to guaranteeing a large section of the US population would be deluged with fascist propaganda. And Sheldon Adelson, Robert Mercer, the Koch Family, the Ford Family, the hiers to the Hoover Institute, and a few dozen other riechwing billionaires financed their efforts.
This isn't just dumb people all stupidly flipping the Trump switch by coincidence. It's the product of sustained industrial tier media manipulation by people whose personal fortunes are predicated on misinformation.
Goes back further than that to the post-war era with the dismantling of the union movement and oppression of left wing voices due to the 2nd Red Scare/McCarthyism
lol @ "fine-tooth comb"
Coming in with a wrecking ball is the "business acumen" i.e. sucking out as much money as possible, taking credit for any perceived successes, and passing out blame for any perceived failures. The entire point of business is to enrich the businessman. They're idolized when they really should be recognized as the parasites they actually are.
No reason?
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA
Right?! My dude, bringing in a wrecking ball and ruining people's lives is the reason. Trump isn't a stable genius, he's a geriatric lunatic who's been given the keys to the asylum.
"I didn't think that the leopards would eat MY face" - says the person who voted for the Leopards Eating Faces party
That's a good one!
This being jpeged as fuck adds so much to this, and I fear it is not intentional.
I wish I could say I created this image, but alas, there are people more talented than me on the Internet. My head cannon says the amount of jpeg is intentional and definitely a highlight!
Well if you ever need to intentionally jpeg something there are plenty of tools available:
https://morejpeg.com/Image/View/d1f359b7-9af0-ef11-8104-ea49aec8cc27
It is called "coping". At the back of their minds, they know they got it wrong but are too proud to admit it. So, they double down instead and engaging in sunk cost fallacy.
His "business acumen" is hostile takeover style from the 80s-90s. If the guy really studied up he would've known those types come in and slash and burn. No one is spared. They squeeze the juice out until a company is "lean and mean" and attractive to investors that want to liquidate or restart without old guard getting in the way. What a dummy.
Side note: I am banned from conservative subs, but my last comment there was responded with "conservatism is a necessary counterpoint to progressivism" and can somebody tell me ANY conservative policies that were for the good of humanity? Because all I see is a severely mentally ill bunch of fucking psychopaths that do nothing but destroy freedom and anything at all good for humanity.
Yes and no. Conservatism is supposed to be (ideally, in theory) a ratchet that keeps the wheel from freely spinning in either direction. Conservatives are to preserve the status quo, which is the position currently taken by Democrats and not Republicans. We don't have a counterbalance to the Repubs, which is why the wheel is slowly clicking to the right.
I used to assume this was more 'both sides are the same' shit but looking at how fast Trump is moving while the democrats spent years getting very little done really puts it into perspective.
oh no, I know Trump and the republicans are much, much worse. I know that they are so terrible, that any vote to keep them out of office is better then to not vote "out of protest".
I've just also been paying attention long enough to be cynical about the democrats. I remember when the democrats had majority during Obama, but a hand full of sellouts would play hot-potato voting against any progressive movement. Any one of them would vote for progress most of the time, but enough of them voted against that noting ever got done.
This is really good. Thanks for posting!
So if we had a truly progressive party in power conservatives job would be saying can we afford this, what would the impacts be, why do we need to do this thing, why is the status quo not good etc etc. Then they are suppose to listen to reason, trial out big changes, adapt, and let the future go forward making sure the small man and traditionalists aren't left behind.
Instead conservatives are about changing the climate, culture, and environment to hurt others or hold back common sense things that make people equal.
it is inherently selfish behavior.
at best, they will tell you 'i just want my tax dollars/government to be efficient' but we see how that actually plays out with regards to the oligarchy taking control.
It’s always so sad and absurdly funny at the same time that real people think like this. I can’t help but laugh and then just rethink about my life yet again.
So Trump created a tv show as an ad to establish an image as a businessman. I wonder if that’s all they know.
Could they have somehow missed or ignored decades of news headlines and only paid attention to TV? And thought “reality TV” was reality?
Fine tooth comb lmao.
I remember listening to a news podcast and I don't recall if it was an idea of the GOP, heritage, musk, bolsonaro (who they're taking cues from) but one idea was fire all employees with an even number ID. Easy way to get half the staff. I'm still expecting that kind of "fine tooth comb" because so far they're just going after the easy starting point: asking people to resign and probationary workers.
Never dealt with any business type person who did anything "with a fine tooth comb". It's always "just tear it out and replace it with my thing, it'll be fine". It's never fine but they're so far above the mess that it doesn't affect them so who gives a shit.
The MAGAts failed to learn the Orange KGB agent does not give a flying fuck about them. Businees acumen? Nope. LOL!
You just love to see it.
You think he would vote for Trump again? Or did he learn from this?
If we ever have a vote again. Yeah. 100% because he'll once again think the GOP is just so great on the economy. DOW is down 750 points at the moment if anyone is wondering how absolute chaos effects the stock market.
These people don't read, they just see the flashy show on fox news, then go to work
If that is a reason to vote for someone maybe Gabe Newell should run for president.
This guy was the real stain on his department, meanwhile you had other feds trying to hold the line against this happening to all of them, while this guy is blindly trusting that he'll be the exception. Idiot.
😆
It has been said a million times, and it will be said again.
You -clap- voted -clap- for -clap- this!
Why would he think that in 2024 when that was literally what he ran on in 2016 and look how that worked out
Let's say he showed up for a 9-5 shift.
He literally did nothing for 2 and a half hours before finding out he was fired? sounds exactly like cutting waste to me.
What is this? Second grade?
In companies like these it's better to call IT (or HR) and wait for instructions.
If you go around annoying all your superiors then you're just wasting everybody's time instead of only your own. Plus they would just tell you to wait for IT (or HR) instead.
What else are you gonna do? Everything's online. Clean up your desk and wait.