Thursday 17 November 2016

Trump: Can They Possibly Mean What They Say?

Last week I suggested we were in for an entertaining feast of leftie hair-tearing over Trump's trump.  For the first couple of days I started noting some of the more egregious examples, but rapidly gave up - it would have been a full-time task.  Someone will do their doctorate on it one day: "Mass hysteria, hyperbole and competitive virtue-signalling: a case study in social media".

My question now is: do they seriously mean a word of it?  Because if so, (a) there will surely be a measurable Werther effect, not to mention a spike in clinical depression of an unparalled nature; and (b) well, let's just say the US Secret Service will have its work cut out.

Meanwhile, the more articulate lefties who are starting to realise they may just have overcooked things a little, are also starting to worry about a very amusing secondary problem, viz that with the passage of time they themselves will begin to 'normalize' the outcome of the election.  You can tell this troubles them a lot, so it must be happening inside their own skulls right now.

I can't wait to see what the even-more-subtle, third-order psychological problem will be that crops up after that.  Or maybe it can be mapped in the traditional maner: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  

They'd hate acceptance.

ND

PS, for a complete antidote, they should try this (via the perceptive Scott Adams).

UPDATE:   Right on cue ... 

15 comments:

Dick the Prick said...

I think we'd all confess to be a bit nerdy about politics - sure, we tell people it's a bit of a hobby but secretly there's a bit of OCD knocking about and we all bumped our heads in our early teenage years and have never broken free from the arrested development it caused.

With that in mind, for the Democrats to blame Hillary's loss on 'internalized misogyny' is absolutely awesome. I genuinely don't know where to start with such a clearly offensive, conceited, inaccurate and demeaning analysis and their pig-headed refusal to acknowledge that the voters didn't make the mistake - they did.

This may be a watershed, I don't particularly see it myself, but if it is - the left may be more to blame for it than the right. So far it's been funny but if Marine Le Pen gets in, well, the laughter's gonna quieten down a bit.

CityUnslicker said...

With a strictly Realpolitick view, Le Penn getting in is awesome.

Must be a great betting op though - most frenchies are near communist no fucking way she will make it in a run-off. It won't be 3 in a row but the betting markets will be febrile.

Anonymous said...

Nick, the answer to your question is that identity politics makes people paranoid. It teaches them to see other people not as individuals but as representatives of a category. The categories are organised into an elaborate hierarchy of victimhood and oppression and all social interactions are treated as an expression of the power relationships between the groups.

A person who has internalised this way of thinking will start to see everyone who belongs to one of the designated oppressor groups as a threat and will feel acutely uncomfortable in their presence. They will feel that they are surrounded by enemies who are just waiting for an opportunity to do something terrible to them. Since they have been trained to interpret everything they see and hear in terms of power relationships they will see threatening messages everywhere, and their heightened self-consciousness will make it seem as though it’s all aimed at them personally.

The SJWs are so full of rage and so ready to lash out because they really do think that they are under constant attack. They need to scream and shout to relieve the unbearable psychological pressure of living in a state of permanent siege. That’s also why many leftist writers have such a breathless, frantic style full of hyperbole and wild accusations. It’s the desperate strung-out voice of the paranoiac.

To somebody in that state of mind, it would be impossible to conceive of a rich white male Republican – the apex predator of oppression – wanting to do anything other than establish a brutal tyranny. Now I’m sure that some leftists have been deliberately exaggerating their fears for political effect and that some have just expressed themselves carelessly. But I suspect that many of them really do believe that Trump is the new Hitler because that’s the kind of thinking that identity politics naturally leads to.

AndrewZ said...

Comment above was from me, I just forgot to put my name on it.

Electro-Kevin said...

Adham

مرحبا

I was debating this with my lefty friend (and Brexit.) It all descended into the usual insult.

I asked him how he'd got the accent under the 'c' in 'facade' during one of his rants. The conversation went like this:

He "I have a multilingual spell checker. Yours is a racist anglophone one."

Me (having sent him a picture of a really gawdy Beatles watch) "I bet you'd wear one of these."

He "Will it get teenage pussy all over my face ?"

Me "Only if you're wearing it in a really bad road accident."

It's not often I best my mate in these exchanges so please excuse my indulgence here.

Steven_L said...

It won't be 3 in a row but the betting markets will be febrile.

Yep, I've been eyeing up the even money or so on Juppe. Any of the others got a good shot?

Blue Eyes said...

AndrewZ an interesting point. A friend of mine was rooting for Hillary mainly because she is a woman and wouldn't it be good to have a black man then a woman straight after. Not "Obama has been really good, a continuity candidate with a similar approach would be the best outcome" but "it's about time those rednecks put a woman in charge". After the election she put a rather silly post on Facebook saying she was so disappointed with America, having got her hopes up having read one of Obama's books.

Identity politics pure and simple, and I understand why so many people vote against that even if voting against it means a boorish and inexperienced politician getting in.

I am also shocked by how personally people take this stuff. Trump and the Brexit vote had ruined 2016 for several people I know. These people have had a good year according to my reckoning. Why do people get so involved? I remember being very angry when Brown reneged on the referendum on the Lisbon treaty and I even wrote to my MP to complain (she agreed with me) and of course the financial crisis was scary, but I don't think they made me think that my year was ruined.

What is that?

K said...

@EK On touch devices if you long press on certain letters you get a pop up for accented variants. It's a default feature and he sounds like a çûñt.

Nick Drew said...

BE - I am also shocked by how personally people take this stuff

it's a puzzle, isn't it? - Partly, I want to say:

- lefties are generally wrongheaded, so more frequently bumping up against reality & hurting themselves
- lefties are more optimistic (conservatism has a strong streak of both realism and often pessemism), so more frequently dismayed
- lefties, if they think of history at all in any thoughtful manner, seem to reckon 'history is on their side' ((c) K.Marx 1844), whereas conservatives tend to have a longer, more rounded view / shit happens / again, more realism
- a lot of social-media lefties are just plain stupid, deluded

but even taken altogether, it doesn't seem quite adequate - particularly for the cases of really quite well-educated lefties, of which there are a few, and well to the fore in the present MSM tumult

CityUnslicker said...

Nick - the constant hand-wringing presses on and aids corrosion of their nervous system over the years and contributes to a physical diminution of their mental health.

Anonymous said...

Rapid up-and-down hand movements dont much help either.

Blue Eyes said...

ND and CU I think both points are valid. I wonder if they would be getting so het-up if there was a latter-day Idi Amin somewhere less relevant than the US. And were they getting so excited by Pym Fortuyn?

dearieme said...

Your reference to the Werther effect was really rather original. Four extra marks.

Nick Drew said...

you can come again

Suff said...

BE/ ND It's not a puzzle. It's just the first time the adults have been allowed back in to the room to give their opinion. It's absolutely crushed their whole world view
For generations our democratic elections have been a least dirty shirt option, between an ever decreasing inbred gene pool. The only difference between them, the colour of their rosette or button. The self perpetuating bollocks between government, activists and media, has been so successful at shutting out debate, they all started believing there own BS and actually believed it was the will of the people. With no "none of the above" option available, Having a virtually independent candidate, no matter how bad, allowed the silent majority to a give a huge FU to the usual suspects. The same can be said for Brexit.