Raw Story’s David Edwards has a great little post up highlighting one Trump supporter’s unique explanation of why he supports that terrible, terrible man.
Ernie Boch Jr., billionaire CEO of Subaru New England, offered his take on Trump in an appearance on CNN earlier today. Taking a look at him, you might assume that he’s supporting Trump out of a feeling of solidarity for a fellow billionaire with bad hair.
Nah. He has a somewhat different, if no less silly, explanation.
You’ve got to think of it like this, it’s 2 o’clock in the morning and there’s a few girls at the bar, you have to go home with one of them. So, you have to pick who you are with. And I think that Mr. Trump is the best qualified.
That’s right. Trump is the political equivalent of the drunk gal you approach at a bar two minutes before closing time. Trump is Ms. Right Now.
When CNN’s Chris Cuomo asked him to explain this rather unique take on Trump, Boch insisted that
If you’re single you understand this. You know, it’s the end of the night, you want to go home with somebody. You know, the bar is about to close. You have to pick somebody! You have to pick somebody!
Here’s the whole interview:
Huh. I guess Trump gets the supporters he deserves.
Donald Trump: Have you tried squinting real hard?
The analogy’s off though. Trump isn’t the person you go home with when you’re drunk and desperate, he’s the creepy dude asking every woman in the bar to go home with him and suggesting that they have another drink on him when they say no.
OT: I’m halfway through last nights Democratic debate, and I’m terribly disappointed and unimpressed with Hillary so far. She keeps repeating some of the dumbest counterarguments from the previous debates. Is this it? It’s down to her and Bernie, and she’s got nothing?
“Donald Trump — I guess he’ll do.”
@dhag — Hillary’s worthless. I’m hoping Bernie gets the nomination.
@Saphira
I’d prefer Bernie as well, but I won’t go so far as to say Hillary’s worthless. It’s still likely that she will be the candidate, and she’s endlessly better than anyone from the Republican side, but that’s why I’m so frustrated with her.
Well, for a century the reactionaries have been training people to freeze when they hear the word “Socialist!” so it has become a snarl word, a thought-stopper, completely devoid of any history or supporting evidence and argument about why socialism might not work.
At the same time, taxes have been vilified. Look, nobody likes paying taxes, but we benefit from common institutions and those institutions need money to operate. The tax burden has been shifted onto the lower classes, so the tax base has shrunk and important things have been neglected. That’s why our infrastructure is crumbling, and places like Flint, Michigan and St. Joseph, Louisiana have water crises.
Heaven forbid we not purchase a couple more fighter planes, though. If we’re not larger than the next five largest militaries combined, then we’ll wake up one morning and there’ll be
CommunistsRed ChineseIraniansIraqisAl QaedaSyrians in the streets!Allow me to renew my pledge that I will vote for the Democrat in the election, whoever that might be. I hope it’s Bernie, but Clinton’s better than any of the Republicans.
@ falconer
He, I think it’s those Canadians you need to keep an eye on.
But yeah, socialism isn’t as dirty a word here. You have to be in a very weird position here to suggest we shouldn’t have the NHS (can’t think of a serious politician of any stripe who’s ever suggested otherwise)
And even my most capitalist friends don’t see anything outlandish about critical national infrastructure like the railways and utilities being under state control.
I think there’s a much smaller spectrum here (so it’s all about minor differences). Blairite Labour and the Tories are pretty much the same thing, and on some issues they swap orbits (like Neptune and Pluto).
Even Corbyn labour has a defence secretary who could be a Tory, and even his economic policies aren’t scaring the major financial institutions that much.
(Not making any points there about any of the parties, I’d be quite content with any of them in government, like I say, there’s only a few minor differences between them)
@Falconer: An even bigger problem with the military spending in this country is that the Republican-controlled Congress increasingly forces it to buy stuff it doesn’t want or need. Those people also have the Defense Dept. enter into rent-to-own agreements that are both financially disadvantageous to the taxpayers and stick the military with obsolete equipment.
@ scildfreja
Ha, love that. It reminds me of David Mitchell’s wonderfully progressive super villain Captain Drayfox
“Ha, and the world shall kneel before me!
Unless of course anyone has any cultural objections to kneeling, in which case I’m happy to accept your obsequience in any way you find culturally appropriate”
@ falconer
What do you think about Thomas Frank’s old theory that the Republicans have successfully managed to convince people that the culture war is more important than sound economics or social security? I’ve always doubted it, but from looking at US TV, the culture war seems to drown out all other discussions, and the fact that most Americans are actually for ACA, but a lot of those still vote Republican, seems to point in the same direction.
@ Alan
Nationalised railways? In the UK? Where? I mean, it’s not as if European party politics haven’t seen a turn to the right since New Labour (which was mirrored by Social Democrats in other countries).
I get that in public discourse, state-funded social services and infrastructure are much less maligned than in the US, but it’s not like they haven’t been significantly downgraded over the last twenty years (or, in the UK, since Thatcher).
@Bina:
According to teiresias, he got his money the old-fashioned way: inherited it from his father.
Which, admittedly, is exactly the same way that Donald Trump got most of his money. Woody Guthrie had some comments to make about ‘Old Man Trump’… http://gawker.com/woody-guthrie-despised-his-landlord-donald-trumps-racis-1754282007
@alan
Isn’t your David Cameron kind of slyly anti nhs? I see a lot of save the nhs petitions about this year. Socialism I think is good but the point hinges on people paying taxes. Most people will avoid if they can do and then you end up with situations where you have to leave your own country just to get decent medical care. That said the same can be said of the US…
Also there is no national rail any more in the UK it is all outsourced right? To alestrom or whatever it is called…
Also something to be said for extremism. While socialism looks good on the UK and Scandinavia, Ukraine, Russia & other Blakans are still recovering from socialism. Any political ideal can be harmful in the wrong hands. Whoever said that trump is a loose cannon got it spot on. This whole race is the cult of personality which always ends in disaster. A leader who leads by personality cares only for themself and not their country. Democrat Republican or socialist trump is bad news all over.
@ Bernardo & valentine
Yeah, we experimented with rail privatisation but it hasn’t really worked. It’s not really suited to a market economy anymore. Fine when you could just pick which direction from London you wanted to build, but we need an integrated national system now, and it’s daft to have rolling stock and track in different hands. That’s what I mean when I say most people I know, including those of a capitalist bent, wouldn’t see a problem with re nationalisation.
As to Cameron, I think it’s a bit of a slur (particularly sad that a friend said something rather nasty on twitter about it) but it illustrates the point about our love of the NHS. Even hinting a politician may attack the NHS is a great tactic for a political rival.
I will explain the railways, as I work for one segment of it 🙂
In 1992 John Major privatised British Rail, something even Thatcher thought was a stupid idea. The moving part of the railways was broken up into fairly random regions which were bid on by and awarded to a set of franchisees. These franchises are up for grabs every five years or so. Currently most of them are held by larger companies (i.e. Firstgroup, which also runs buses etc.). Recently one franchise was so badly screwed up that the government had to take it back for a period..and amazingly! the service was excellent and the fares were low. But alas it’s back in private hands.
The franchisees rent their trains from what are called ROSCOs, which quickly became controlled by banks. This was probably the best scam ever–you buy rolling stock, then you rent it to rail franchisees which are a captive market, so you can charge whatever you like for them.
The nonmoving part of the railway was given to a private company called Railtrack, which promptly sacked all the engineers (too costly, bad effect on the bottom line) and devoted themselves to making money. After a series of deadly accidents Railtrack was disbanded, and the nonmoving part of the railway is now controlled by a nonprofit private company called Network Rail. Network Rail is subsidised by the government, but as a private company the money the government spent on it was off the books, but this has recently changed; the money is back on the books and Network Rail’s ability to borrow has been constrained. This has caused some major soul-searching and it’s unsure how this will affect the massive investment in rail infrastructure which is now underway and is scheduled to increase by at least an order of magnitude.
I’m going to leave out the ever-changing methods of government control (SRA, ORR, DfT) because my fingers are getting tired. I will mention one more thing, which is that EU policy now requires the moving and nonmoving parts of the railway to be considered as separate entities–some European countries just consider this a governmental bookkeeping exercise, and have not gone whole-hog completely separating the two like the UK has and privatising one part. I’ll also say that it’s an exercise best left to the reader to imagine how it’s even possible to develop any kind of rail planning when one integral part of the rail system a) is private and entirely commercially focused and b) changes every five years.
@alan
I can only say what I’ve heard about Cameron 2nd hand (my brother lives in the Uk), but I’ll take what you say as read. Generally the Nhs is one of the best services in the world so I’m not surprised people are protective when the government tries to change things. That said Cameron doesn’t exactly seem like a man of the people though. Not very socialist 😉
Donald Trump – better than solitary jerking off, but you’d have to be drunk.
@ Falconer – I wonder if we’re not seeing a generation for whom some of the sting of those old accusations have worn off?
Here in the UK we’re seeing a return of the use of Marxist / Leninist / Trot / Stalinist / Maoist / SWP (Socialist Worker Party) as insults to characterise Jeremy Corbyn, who is a mild-mannered collegiate Democratic Socialist who enjoys making jam, and all those who support him.
These insults are clearly intended mischievously, but the interesting thing is how pathetic they seem. It’s not only that they are used by people who apparently didn’t know that Stalin and Trotsky were not always the best of pals, or that the Socialist Worker Party in its heyday in this country may have had as many as two thousand active members at a generous estimate (and the years have not been kind to them), but that they seem so innocuous nowadays. The great scary enemy to the East has been gone long enough now for the sting to have disappeared from them.
The main argument I’ve heard against Jeremy Corbyn, and it’s made from the (so called) “moderate” wing of the Labour Party (the wing that seems to have decided to oppose the Tories by agreeing with them on almost everything), is that he is “unelectable”.
Which, with 4 years to go to the next election, is something nobody knows. Ask them why, and there’s no answer.
@ Alan – Our very own Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, co-authored a book with Oliver Letwin on how to privatise the NHS. He’s the guy who thinks googling your kid’s rash is as good as consulting a doctor. His aunt was Thatcher’s Minster of Health and sits in the House of Lords: main paid interests BUPA and various US private health companies. When she was chair of the British Council, Jeremy made himself a millionaire by selling the British Council a patent set of language courses. And under his watch we are having the first doctors’ strike since 1975. So, there’s that.
@Amused:
Thank you! I knew that plenty of government people have military-industrial ties, and that therefore buying weapons platforms puts money in their pockets, but those details were unknown to me.
Funny how things that benefit our Congresscritters are vitally important security issues for our country, while things that don’t directly benefit them are socialist wealth redistribution schemes.
@bernardo soares:
I haven’t read his theory directly, but I’d say there’s a lot going for it. The Rs pound the podium about marriage and the right to choose and have you noticed all these brown people there weren’t so many brown people back when I was a boy, and dismiss any attempt to stop them pocketing all the money as socialism.
I’m going to stop there because I’ve spent the last half hour writing about it all. It just makes me so mad that so many people are selfish and willing to believe other selfish people when they tell them to cut off their noses to spite their faces. God damn.
@Alan Robertshaw:
Center right and center left? Really? O_O
I mean… I knew politics were different in other places, but… good god. I need to travel more. And possibly move house to a place where I can actually manage some respect for my choices of leaders.
I think the Republican National Committee and the rest of the establishment wing do know that with their current crop of candidates, winning the White House is next to impossible. They acknowledged after the 2012 election that only appealing to older white people makes it demographically unfeasible. But their base doesn’t care. They want ideological purity and most of the country disagrees with that ideology.
I just realized I’ve never voted for a man in any election ever.
2006 General Election: didn’t vote
2009 European Parliament: Socialdemokraterna (Marita Ulvskog)
2010 General Election: Socialdemokraterna (Mona Sahlin)
2014 European Parliament: Feministiskt Initiativ (Soraya Post)
2014 General Election: Feministiskt Initiativ (Gudrun Schyman & Sissela Nordling Blanco)
Coincidence? Or zombiefying vagina goo? Particularly suspicious that there wasn’t any reasonable left of center woman candidate in 2006, perfectly coinciding with me being young and not caring about politics in the slightest. Hmm.
@ guest
The fact you don’t work for all of it illustrates your points!
@ bluecat
Yeah, I can’t talk about those two without breaching the comments policy.
@ Kirby
I think that’s probably how they’d be described in Britain using the definitions that most political commentators go by. Obviously we have people over here too who would think Bernie is far left and Hillary is far right, but that’s like a personal Overton Window vibe.
ETA: some of my more political friends think all US politicians are far right, but they’re only reluctantly supporting Corbyn and won’t actually vote for him unless he sacks Benn and Watson and de selects 80% of the Labour MPs.