4 ms·

I agree with your sentiment but I no longer think empathy is a good long term plan. One of my favorite books is Excellent Cadavers. It's about two judges in Si

• palmotea 8mo ago
  > Trump is hoping we all stop at trying to find empathy for his team. I'm not talking about his team, I'm talking about the people who voted for him. For instance, he wouldn't have even got off the ground if free trade hadn't decimated the US manufacturing sector. I won't fault anyone with a blue-collar job for voting for him, because the choice was him vs. some neoliberal. When the choices are bad, I understand making a desperate move. And now we have even worse polarization, which fuels his type even more. More and deeper polarized "action" (like the snide remark I responded to upthread) is not the way to make things better.
  • xrd 8mo ago
    That's a good point. I totally agree.
  • atmavatar 8mo ago
    > For instance, he wouldn't have even got off the ground if free trade hadn't decimated the US manufacturing sector. I won't fault anyone with a blue-collar job for voting for him, because the choice was him vs. some neoliberal. And I would agree with you for the 2016 election. However, when Trump lost more manufacturing jobs under his first term than were lost under Obama despite all his bluster about saving and restoring said jobs, and his administration's only legislative win was a big tax cut for the wealthy, it's no longer a valid reason to vote for the guy in 2020 or 2024. And, the joke's on any who did vote for him a second and third time: he's lost even more manufacturing jobs. The tragedy is if you look at the actual data, manufacturing jobs generally recover under Democrat administrations, and they tend to be lost in significant numbers under Republican administrations. People are more easily swayed by memes and sound bites than actual data, though. See: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/manemp https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/manemp