The fact that over a million people have applied for tickets for the Tulsa rally certainly speaks to me of cult. Many will travel and literally rub shoulders with strangers who have also travelled. All of them will have signed wavers so the organisers can't be sued.
And Trump has a lot of older supporters. Plus folks with underlying health issues. So the event can very easily generate loads of clusters.
Where are their brains?
When some elderly Trump supporters who manage to get a ticket catch the plague, will they live long enough to vote? In the mean time, will they pass it on to other T supporters who failed to get a ticket? I fear for others (eg care workers or shop staff) they pass it on to.
The fact that over a million people have applied for tickets for the Tulsa rally certainly speaks to me of cult.
I've heard rumors that lots of anti-Trumpers have been applying for tickets in the hopes that there will be a lot of no-shows, making Trump look bad. However there's no limit to the number of "tickets" being applied for -- the campaign is just harvesting names and contact information.
So a million applications does not mean a million people want to attend, but it also doesn't mean empty seats because of people applying and not planning to attend.
However it turns out, I'm sure he'll call it the bigliest rally crowd ever. (I wonder if there a long, steep ramp to get on and off the stage...)
Watching the live feed of the Trump Rally--It appears there are only 10,000 people in the arena--half full at the most. The Trump campaign canceled the outdoor rally and there is no overflow crowd. The Trump campaign complains that the BLM protesters and the media scared away his crowd. Al Sharpton claims it appears the rally is a FLOP.
In the build up to this rally there was news segment about a racism massacre in Tulsa about 100 years ago. After a young man bumped into a woman a newspaper built it up into a rape of a white young woman by a black man. They murdered 300 some people, locked up several thousands "for their protection", burnt down the neighborhood to the tune of some billions in today's money. They didn't mention confederate flags but queried about whether they feature in trump rallies. There's evidently a racism cult.
Trump rallygoer sans mask: “We had a friend who died from Covid, and his son was on a ventilator, he almost died. So we know it’s real, but then at the same time you don’t know what the facts are, you feel like maybe one side plays it one way and the other side plays it another.”
We know it's real.
We don't know what the facts are.
-- what am I missing? or, maybe it's what these people are missing. Unforgivable.
"You don't know what the facts are" sums it up succinctly. These people believe that you-know-who is the Second Coming of the Lord Almighty and that therefore no evil could befall those who follow him.
Well, the auditorium was only about half full. There was room for greater social distancing but not too many made use of it. Not very many wore masks.
And Trump was terrible. The worst thing was his criticism of the value of testing. So bad that the White House had to 'clarify' that it was 'a joke of course'.
I hope it was as damaging to waverers as it thoroughly deserved to be. Feet of clay were on display. Cults die hard, so I'm not predicting the death of this cult. Not yet anyway.
I am struck and surprised by the continuing level of racism in parts of the US. I have spent time in South Africa, and I would never have expected racism to have continued to exist in the US to the same level as there.
Other than that, is it not possible that the importance of any Trump cult is overblown? To me, Trump's support appears to be based on good old fashioned triangulation; no different to Tony Blair in the UK (or Johnson on Brexit), except that Trump is egotistical enough to rely on taboo issues and permanently damage American political culture in the process. He (and I suspect his advisors too, actually) have worked out that there are more votes to be gained than alienated by advocating for nationalism, none-to-subtle racism, blue-collar workers (and, paradoxically, plutocrats), misogyny, xenophobia against the Chinese and American isolationism.
To give one example, the religious right have lent him their votes, I assume, due to the abortion issue, and therefore they are prepared to overlook his serial adultery and greed, and I have always assumed that his choice of Mike Pence as vice-president was to assure them that, to adapt a phrase, there was "a Godly adult in the room".
Which means that Biden's job is to carve out just a small part of those votes in the right areas (presumably the blue collar vote) in order to win.
I wonder if the Mormons, to their credit, were something of an exception: he did win Utah but not as much as would be normal for a Republican candidate, and I understand that was due to their dislike of his moral character.
Your analysis @CamryOfTheApocalypse makes sense. However, might I suggest that that might be the wrong approach. You're a rational, analytical person. You are applying your own way of looking at things to a phenomenon that doesn't make sense on those terms.
If the primary driver of Trumpism and those who align with it, is emotion, gut reactions, then just as reason won't persuade a Trumpist to change his or her mind - because what makes them who they are isn't in the mind - so reason and analysis don't work in explaining how they are likely to respond or what they are likely to do. If anything, that probably requires being able to imagine yourself feeling as they feel. That is a jump most non-Trumpists probably don't have the tools to do, particularly non-Trumpists who do not live in the US and don't feel as a person feels who is a native of its culture.
So was it the bigliest rally ever? There were some good people - great people! - there...
IOW, how does Trump explain away such a miserable damp squib?
Too many evilz protesters, didn't allow the good and virtuous in. VOCABULARY WARNING: Only read the following quote if you are a master of the language.
In His Own goodest words:
We had some very bad people outside. They were doing bad things
Possibly, but it couldn't have been a very good school...
There was a photo on some news site of an upper terrace of seats in the Tulsa venue, almost completely empty except for one elderly-looking chap, wearing a face-mask. At least he was maintaining social distancing!
So was it the bigliest rally ever? There were some good people - great people! - there...
IOW, how does Trump explain away such a miserable damp squib?
He doesn't. He's humiliated and angry. Only one tweet today, "Happy Father's Day."
But Brad Parscale has an explanation:
The fact is that a week’s worth of the fake news media warning people away from the rally because of COVID and protesters, coupled with recent images of American cities on fire, had a real impact on people bringing their families and children to the rally," Parscale said. "MSNBC was among outlets reporting that protesters even blocked entrances to the rally at times. For the media to now celebrate the fear that they helped create is disgusting, but typical. And it makes us wonder why we bother credentialing media for events when they don’t do their full jobs as professionals. From Fox News - which is still where you go if you want to know what the Trump camp is saying.
I wonder how long Parscale will keep his job. In any normal campaign, if you set the candidate up for this kind of humiliation, you'd be fired.
The real explanation is probably a combination of things. 1. Loads of people really did sign up for tickets (and who knows how many of those were the K-pop fans who claim to have signed up, giving bogus info), the campaign touted that, and people decided it was going to be too big of a pain to fight the supposed 100,000 other people for seats in a 19,000-seat venue. 2. Oklahoma isn't very big, and Tulsa isn't very big: about 400,000 people. So even though it's a ruby-red state, in absolute terms there weren't enough local die-hard Trump supporters willing to come out. 3. Coronavirus: my Trump-supporting neighbor is taking precautions, and I'm sure she's not alone.
Amusingly, the Fox article notes that pre-registration wasn't actually required to get in at all - it was just a mechanism to collect data on-line for the campaign.
Well, it wasn't Trump's fault. Apart, that is, from his appalling record of appointing, supporting and firing. Honest people just walk or get pushed. Sycophants never could organise anything. After all, when truth is a moving target you can get pretty confused.
Time for my favourite quote from the Dune Series (this from Dune Messiah)
If you put away from you those who tell you the truth, those who remain will know what you want to hear. I can think of nothing more poisonous than to rot in the stink of your own reflections.
Your analysis @CamryOfTheApocalypse makes sense. However, might I suggest that that might be the wrong approach. You're a rational, analytical person. You are applying your own way of looking at things to a phenomenon that doesn't make sense on those terms.
Why thank you [smile]
If the primary driver of Trumpism and those who align with it, is emotion, gut reactions, then just as reason won't persuade a Trumpist to change his or her mind - because what makes them who they are isn't in the mind - so reason and analysis don't work in explaining how they are likely to respond or what they are likely to do. If anything, that probably requires being able to imagine yourself feeling as they feel. That is a jump most non-Trumpists probably don't have the tools to do, particularly non-Trumpists who do not live in the US and don't feel as a person feels who is a native of its culture.
But a bit like how the most convincing lies contain some elements of truth, so the very worst and irrational movements contain some rational drivers. They may be very poor, but they are at least partly rational rather than emotional. In the case of Trump, I can think of various reasons why a person might hold their nose and vote for him.
Take the example of a factory worker in Pennsylvania. His job has become steadily more precarious over the last two decades and his wages have stagnated. Many of his friends are long-term unemployed. The work they used to do has been offshored to China: a trend that started in the 90s under the Democrat administration of Bill Clinton, continued under the Republican GW Bush and accelerated under the Democrat Barack Obama. He does not know if he will be able to pay the rent or go to the doctor next year.
It's 2016. He has a choice. On the one hand, there is the Democrat candidate that (if you vote at all) offers more of the same. The other candidate - Trump - says that he'll bring all the jobs back.
He thinks that Trump is probably a charlatan, but on the other hand what does he have to lose?
I can think of other reasons that, although very bad reasons, are explicable. One is outright racism: not wanting white people to be outnumbered because the history you study at school tells you what it means to become a minority. So you vote to build the wall, although you suspect it's quixotic.
I completely grant you that there may be an enormous dose of self-delusion born of emotion mixed in with all this. But I would resist the temptation to believe that that's all there is. And that gives me hope for the forthcoming election.
I would hazard a guess that the average Trump supporter outside the US is a lot more delusional than those within, as those outside have no clear benefit to themselves for supporting him. The ones I know have an almost cult-like regard for him: he gives license to their racism and misogyny, to put it bluntly. I think that's an important point to bear in mind for those outside the US looking in.
I agree especially with your last paragraph. We outsiders don't get to see Americans at the supermarket. We see them on the telly, shouting at each other, or on social media, shouting at each other. We don't hear about Americans organizing for charitable purposes, we hear about them organizing to rush the fence at Area 41, or making signs for Q-Anon rallies. We don't hear about efforts at reconciliation or peacemaking by American Christians. We hear about the outrages of the Phelps family in Westboro.
I was too young for discernment in 1980, but the Media went full boar when the USA elected Reagan. They told us all about his acting, but failed to highlight his prior political experience. So when Roger Stone goes on TV in 2015, he can shrug off the world's judgement of Trump by saying, "They thought Reagan was an idiot too".
Now Trump is no Reagan, but how can we judge all those voters who decided that Obama #2 wasn't for them? All we can do is rely on the judgement of our shipmates, and other Americans we know and trust, who are going through this in real time.
For me, it beggars belief that millions of Americans are stupid. I don't think that's the case at all. I am allowing myself to hope.
I have, last night, been sent a link to a website in which a person called John Stubbins interviews a person called Trevor Loudon, about the infestation of anything they don't agree with by Antifa, which has direct links to Beijing and the horrors of socialism. That it is wrong to make a fuss of BLM because far more white people are killed - that is the point at which I gave up before it was half over.
This was sent by someone I like, a friend, a person of intelligence, who sadly attributes their information to Intelligence, which is worrying if true, because the content of the talk is very obviously largely not true.
The two people concerned are strangely absent from the web, especially Stubbins. There is a Wikipedia article about Loudon, but I can't use that in argument because my contact does not trust that source. even probably with a quote from him about his association with a group using techniques from Scientology. I'm ignoring their own sites, or places advertising Loudon's books.
There is also a web site with an accusation of something utterly disgusting which led to Loudon's expulsion from the CIA, which I will ignore.
Does anyone have any useful background on these guys, so I can start to steer our friend away from her prayers that Trump will have a second term. (I doubt God is listening, but I would like the friendship to go on beyond November.)
From the quote @Ruth gave us: "And it makes us wonder why we bother credentialing media for events when they don’t do their full jobs as professionals."
@Penny S - I can't even begin to answer your questions about these people, who are entirely unknown to me.
Howbeit, I am going to ask a rather personal question. Please don't take this the wrong way, but do you really want a person with such toxic views as a friend?
There are times - and I'm sure there are verses in Scripture which will confirm this - when one should simply walk away, and ignore, that which is injurious to one's emotional, mental, or spiritual health.
That doesn't mean to say, of course, that one should stop praying for the well-being of the other person - God he knows what is best for them.
Take the example of a factory worker in Pennsylvania. . . . The work they used to do has been offshored to China:. . . . The other candidate - Trump - says that he'll bring all the jobs back. He thinks that Trump is probably a charlatan, but on the other hand what does he have to lose?
Except that you-know-who **didn't** -- indeed, can't -- bring all the jobs back. So if Pennsylvania Phil votes for him a second time, who is the loser?
News sources, etc. that might help you find the kind of info you want. Just be aware that "progressives" can be imperfect, biased, mean, too! So think before using a particular resource.
Oh, and Business Insider, too. Not necessarily progressive; but does some good coverage, ISTM.
Re the Phoenix area church where you-know-who is holding his rally today:
It's called the Dream City Church. They are Assembly of God. They have four locations in the Phoenix area, plus one in northern Arizona on the border with Utah, another in eastern Arizona, and another in Nebraska.
On their website's home page is a link to a statement re you-know-who's appearance, stating that the rental is merely an income-producing venture and not an endorsement of you-know-who's views. So much for serving God and mammon.
Dream City Church also claims a new miracle cure-- even better than hydroxychloroquine, I guess.
Senior Pastor Luke Barnett and Brendon Zastro said, they have “installed these units and it kills 99.9% of COVID within 10 minutes." In the video, they go on to say, “When you come into our auditorium 99% of COVID is gone, killed, if it was even there in the first place.” The post has received hundreds of comments, questioning the scientific accuracy of their claims.
our auditorium??? Is that different from the place where they worship God? I'd do a hell thread, but that might require research into an AOG Church, and that's against my religion.
Baby Jesus would just burble, blow bubbles, and crawl around to explore the floor. Mary would take a load off and sit, and keep an eye on him. Somewhere along the line, they'd probably both fall peacefully asleep.
(And yes, I know that referring to "baby Jesus and his Blessed Mother" is a thing. Just visualizing, mostly as happening in my childhood church.)
Actually the baby Jesus and his Blessed Mother would recognize that the devil had invaded the temple and would run screaming from the place. Pity the pastor was blind.
Clips on the local news channels showed young people packed into the place, unmasked and unsocially distanced, carrying on as if it were a Grateful Dead concert. The news next week at this time should be interesting.
Well, it avoided Trump at Tulsa, but, according to some news reports, a number of Secret Service peeps have tested positive, and/or been put into isolation...
I wonder how many of The Faithful have also been infected by the stupidity, and overweening vanity, of their chosen one? Still, some of them appear to be willing to die for Trump and Country, so maybe they'll get their wish.
Comments
When some elderly Trump supporters who manage to get a ticket catch the plague, will they live long enough to vote? In the mean time, will they pass it on to other T supporters who failed to get a ticket? I fear for others (eg care workers or shop staff) they pass it on to.
So a million applications does not mean a million people want to attend, but it also doesn't mean empty seats because of people applying and not planning to attend.
However it turns out, I'm sure he'll call it the bigliest rally crowd ever. (I wonder if there a long, steep ramp to get on and off the stage...)
It would be hilarious if it wasn't so bloody dangerous.
Trump rallygoer sans mask: “We had a friend who died from Covid, and his son was on a ventilator, he almost died. So we know it’s real, but then at the same time you don’t know what the facts are, you feel like maybe one side plays it one way and the other side plays it another.”
We know it's real.
We don't know what the facts are.
-- what am I missing? or, maybe it's what these people are missing. Unforgivable.
-1984 written in 1949
And Trump was terrible. The worst thing was his criticism of the value of testing. So bad that the White House had to 'clarify' that it was 'a joke of course'.
I hope it was as damaging to waverers as it thoroughly deserved to be. Feet of clay were on display. Cults die hard, so I'm not predicting the death of this cult. Not yet anyway.
If the primary driver of Trumpism and those who align with it, is emotion, gut reactions, then just as reason won't persuade a Trumpist to change his or her mind - because what makes them who they are isn't in the mind - so reason and analysis don't work in explaining how they are likely to respond or what they are likely to do. If anything, that probably requires being able to imagine yourself feeling as they feel. That is a jump most non-Trumpists probably don't have the tools to do, particularly non-Trumpists who do not live in the US and don't feel as a person feels who is a native of its culture.
So was it the bigliest rally ever? There were some good people - great people! - there...
IOW, how does Trump explain away such a miserable damp squib?
VOCABULARY WARNING: Only read the following quote if you are a master of the language.
In His Own goodest words:
Janet has a new Ball. The Ball is Green. John is a Bad Boy...
Does he?
There was a photo on some news site of an upper terrace of seats in the Tulsa venue, almost completely empty except for one elderly-looking chap, wearing a face-mask. At least he was maintaining social distancing!
He doesn't. He's humiliated and angry. Only one tweet today, "Happy Father's Day."
But Brad Parscale has an explanation:
I wonder how long Parscale will keep his job. In any normal campaign, if you set the candidate up for this kind of humiliation, you'd be fired.
The real explanation is probably a combination of things. 1. Loads of people really did sign up for tickets (and who knows how many of those were the K-pop fans who claim to have signed up, giving bogus info), the campaign touted that, and people decided it was going to be too big of a pain to fight the supposed 100,000 other people for seats in a 19,000-seat venue. 2. Oklahoma isn't very big, and Tulsa isn't very big: about 400,000 people. So even though it's a ruby-red state, in absolute terms there weren't enough local die-hard Trump supporters willing to come out. 3. Coronavirus: my Trump-supporting neighbor is taking precautions, and I'm sure she's not alone.
Time for my favourite quote from the Dune Series (this from Dune Messiah)
Getting pretty stinky now.
Why thank you [smile]
But a bit like how the most convincing lies contain some elements of truth, so the very worst and irrational movements contain some rational drivers. They may be very poor, but they are at least partly rational rather than emotional. In the case of Trump, I can think of various reasons why a person might hold their nose and vote for him.
Take the example of a factory worker in Pennsylvania. His job has become steadily more precarious over the last two decades and his wages have stagnated. Many of his friends are long-term unemployed. The work they used to do has been offshored to China: a trend that started in the 90s under the Democrat administration of Bill Clinton, continued under the Republican GW Bush and accelerated under the Democrat Barack Obama. He does not know if he will be able to pay the rent or go to the doctor next year.
It's 2016. He has a choice. On the one hand, there is the Democrat candidate that (if you vote at all) offers more of the same. The other candidate - Trump - says that he'll bring all the jobs back.
He thinks that Trump is probably a charlatan, but on the other hand what does he have to lose?
I can think of other reasons that, although very bad reasons, are explicable. One is outright racism: not wanting white people to be outnumbered because the history you study at school tells you what it means to become a minority. So you vote to build the wall, although you suspect it's quixotic.
I completely grant you that there may be an enormous dose of self-delusion born of emotion mixed in with all this. But I would resist the temptation to believe that that's all there is. And that gives me hope for the forthcoming election.
I would hazard a guess that the average Trump supporter outside the US is a lot more delusional than those within, as those outside have no clear benefit to themselves for supporting him. The ones I know have an almost cult-like regard for him: he gives license to their racism and misogyny, to put it bluntly. I think that's an important point to bear in mind for those outside the US looking in.
I was too young for discernment in 1980, but the Media went full boar when the USA elected Reagan. They told us all about his acting, but failed to highlight his prior political experience. So when Roger Stone goes on TV in 2015, he can shrug off the world's judgement of Trump by saying, "They thought Reagan was an idiot too".
Now Trump is no Reagan, but how can we judge all those voters who decided that Obama #2 wasn't for them? All we can do is rely on the judgement of our shipmates, and other Americans we know and trust, who are going through this in real time.
For me, it beggars belief that millions of Americans are stupid. I don't think that's the case at all. I am allowing myself to hope.
This was sent by someone I like, a friend, a person of intelligence, who sadly attributes their information to Intelligence, which is worrying if true, because the content of the talk is very obviously largely not true.
The two people concerned are strangely absent from the web, especially Stubbins. There is a Wikipedia article about Loudon, but I can't use that in argument because my contact does not trust that source. even probably with a quote from him about his association with a group using techniques from Scientology. I'm ignoring their own sites, or places advertising Loudon's books.
There is also a web site with an accusation of something utterly disgusting which led to Loudon's expulsion from the CIA, which I will ignore.
Does anyone have any useful background on these guys, so I can start to steer our friend away from her prayers that Trump will have a second term. (I doubt God is listening, but I would like the friendship to go on beyond November.)
Another candidate for Words We Can Do Without.
Howbeit, I am going to ask a rather personal question. Please don't take this the wrong way, but do you really want a person with such toxic views as a friend?
There are times - and I'm sure there are verses in Scripture which will confirm this - when one should simply walk away, and ignore, that which is injurious to one's emotional, mental, or spiritual health.
That doesn't mean to say, of course, that one should stop praying for the well-being of the other person - God he knows what is best for them.
Except that you-know-who **didn't** -- indeed, can't -- bring all the jobs back. So if Pennsylvania Phil votes for him a second time, who is the loser?
Something that *might* be of help:
News, Views, and Tools for Progressives (U Penn).
News sources, etc. that might help you find the kind of info you want. Just be aware that "progressives" can be imperfect, biased, mean, too! So think before using a particular resource.
Oh, and Business Insider, too. Not necessarily progressive; but does some good coverage, ISTM.
Oh^2: Yes! magazine, which focuses on "solutions journalism" in a positive way. Worth checking, IMHO.
ETA: I just noticed you said your friend does a lot of good. On that basis (forget politics), she might like Yes magazine.
Good luck to you and your friend!
It's called the Dream City Church. They are Assembly of God. They have four locations in the Phoenix area, plus one in northern Arizona on the border with Utah, another in eastern Arizona, and another in Nebraska.
Their principal website: https://dreamcitychurch.us/
On their website's home page is a link to a statement re you-know-who's appearance, stating that the rental is merely an income-producing venture and not an endorsement of you-know-who's views. So much for serving God and mammon.
They appear to be holding services live but also have a virtual service, accessible at https://dreamcity.churchonline.org/
I'd love to see someone Mystery Worship them. I won't, as I've been filing more than my share of reports of virtual services lately.
(And yes, I know that referring to "baby Jesus and his Blessed Mother" is a thing. Just visualizing, mostly as happening in my childhood church.)
And what his Father calls the nave?
Does he realise how far the virus can spread indoors over an hour or so? He’s not immune in such an environment.
T, or Baby Jesus? T doesn't really believe in the virus--or at least believes positive thinking can scale it down.
Actually the baby Jesus and his Blessed Mother would recognize that the devil had invaded the temple and would run screaming from the place. Pity the pastor was blind.
Clips on the local news channels showed young people packed into the place, unmasked and unsocially distanced, carrying on as if it were a Grateful Dead concert. The news next week at this time should be interesting.
I'll get me neck gaiter. I have a new one. It is very Black.
I wonder how many of The Faithful have also been infected by the stupidity, and overweening vanity, of their chosen one? Still, some of them appear to be willing to die for Trump and Country, so maybe they'll get their wish.