America Failed

[jfish26]

The Art of Playing the Rubes.

I remember about 10 years ago talking to the few friends I have who were going down the road to Rubehood. When we talked about kids they definitively told me they were not sending their kids to college and actively tried to dissuade them from education because they would be "brainwashed". I was pretty dumbfounded, they had gotten college degrees. And now we have President Eloon calling for more H-1B1 visas telling the rubes we need cheap foreign tech workers.

In his 1987 book, The Art of the Deal, Donald Trump let readers in on a promotional strategy of his. “I play to people’s fantasies,” the real estate developer wrote, by insisting that a project “is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular.” It’s a tactic Trump has also employed in his political career—most effectively this election cycle, when many voters were drawn to him based on perceptions of his second-term plans that had little to no basis in reality.

Consider these archetypal dispatches from the 2024 campaign trail. “A lot of people are happy to vote for [Trump] because they simply do not believe he will do many of the things he says he will,” an October New York Times “campaign notebook” entry observed. The following week, The Washington Post noted of prospective Trump voters: “Some read between Trump’s lines about how he would govern, while others disregard parts of his past or present platform.”

Then there was the phenomenon Paul Krugman, the retiring Times columnist, dubbed “Trump-stalgia,” which could just as well have been called “Trump-nesia.” Most Americans are undoubtedly better off than they were four years ago, he wrote in May. “But for reasons that still remain unclear, many seem disinclined to believe it.” This sentiment held true through the election. As TNR’s Greg Sargent reported on November 9, citing internal Democratic polling, “It proved disturbingly difficult to persuade undecided voters that Trump had been a bad president.”

In other words, for many, Trump was whoever they wanted him to be—a choose-your-own-candidate. Voters projected their wishes onto his candidacy, regardless of his stated policy program. They remembered positive aspects of his presidency and either memory-holed the negative parts (his deadly mishandling of the pandemic, say, or his nomination of Supreme Court justices who eliminated abortion rights) or simply didn’t blame him for them. But Trump’s rhetorical slipperiness made this possible. His relentless lying, flip-flopping, and vagueness about his plans made it difficult to pin him down, thereby attracting voters from both sides of certain issues.

But the chimerical allure that helped propel Trump to the White House has an expiration date. He sold myriad, and often conflicting, fantasies to voters. In three weeks’ time, he’ll face reality. And many Trump voters will undoubtedly start to realize that he is not at all the person they thought they were voting for.

Throughout 2024, the irreconcilable contradictions of Trump’s proposals and promises were wrinkles that could be smoothed over with rhetoric; as president, he’ll have to face them head-on. As William A. Galston wrote in The Wall Street Journal last month, while Trump is an untraditional president, “voters will judge him on a traditional measure—his ability to deliver on the promises that propelled him to a second term. Tensions among these promises will complicate his task.”

Or, to return to Trump’s words in The Art of the Deal: “You can’t con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don’t deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on.” Trump has proven, in business and politics, that in fact he can con people for a very long time. But, come 2025, when he’s confronted with the reality of governing—and, one can hope, a reinvigorated opposition—Trump may finally be exposed to his newfound supporters as the huckster we’ve long known him to be.

Because the Christian Chauvinist Nihilism movement is more of a cult than a standard con, I suspect the rubes will continue to venerate trumpty plumpty for years after he is gone.

Trump has become an avatar; the facts of the person are irrelevant in comparison to the meaning (to some) and utility (to others) of the legend.

In that way, maybe things like this really aren't so off-base after all.

[japhy]

Ahhhh....the much beloved, very white, Jesus is back.

[JKLivin]

Ahhhh....the much beloved, very white, Jesus is back.

I’ve never seen an authentic photograph of him. If you have one, by all means, please share so we can avoid future mistakes.

[jfish26]

Ahhhh....the much beloved, very white, Jesus is back.

I’ve never seen an authentic photograph of him. If you have one, by all means, please share so we can avoid future mistakes.

Do you need a picture to know that Jesus of Nazareth (whoever or whatever he was or was not, as a person and/or deity) was not white?

[JKLivin]

Ahhhh....the much beloved, very white, Jesus is back.

I’ve never seen an authentic photograph of him. If you have one, by all means, please share so we can avoid future mistakes.

Do you need a picture to know that Jesus of Nazareth (whoever or whatever he was or was not, as a person and/or deity) was not white?

Is the person in the picture White? He's not blonde-haired and blue-eyed. He appears to be olive-complected, with dark hair and eyes, which would seem to be within the range one would expect from someone of Palestinian descent. If you don't think he's dark-skinned enough or his nose is too small, or his hair is too straight, then say that rather than this garbage about a "White Jesus" that is just intended to piss people off and spark oUtRAgE.

[japhy]

If it weren't so "important" for Jesus to be white, there wouldn't be so many images of a white man. Of course this imagery predates our modern times, but the modern insistence/persistance is telling.

When asked to picture Jesus, most of us will automatically conjure a mental image of a brown or blonde-haired, blue-eyed, light-skinned angelic man. However, according to the Bible, Jesus was Jewish – he most likely would have had darker, olive skin tone and dark curly hair, at the very least. He would have looked like someone with Middle-Eastern ethnic origins rather than someone with Western or Northern European features. The problem with depicting this great spiritual leader with dark skin and hair is that throughout much of the history of Christianity, white Europeans and Americans have used religion as an excuse for oppression and genocide of dark-skinned people – people who may have looked similar to Jesus.

The Ku Klux Klan in the United States used the emblem of the white Jesus to explain and justify their doctrine of white supremacy. The 1915 film Birth of a Nation, which tells a very racist “history” of Reconstruction-era United States, did much to spur the growth of the KKK in the early 20th century. Write Edward Blum and Paul Harvey in their book The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America: “White crowds all over the nation were riveted. They gasped when white actors in blackface pursued white women to rape them. They cheered as Klansmen rode to avenge the South. And they experienced relief when Jesus stretched his hands over the nation the Klan had saved” (141). The image of a white Jesus became symbolic of the KKK as savior of the United States, saving it from the scourge of lesser races. A 1965 Saturday Evening Post article reports about “Fierce-eyed preachers, most of them self-ordained, [who] began to shout in public the twisted doctrine they had proclaimed in the secrecy of the Klaverns – that Jesus Christ was not a Jew, that the Pope of Rome was Anti-Christ, that the Negro was a beast that must be destroyed” (Martin and Fairly 28). Martin and Fairly go on to describe the attitude of people attending the KKK rallies: “The ignorant and frightened men and women who join the Klan claim to be uplifted by this savage doctrine. To them the Klan is a religion, a holy crusade. In North Carolina, a robed Klansman told reporters: ‘….When I put on this robe it’s a grand feeling. It’s white – as pure as Jesus Christ….’” (28). The KKK would have found it more difficult to perpetuate their doctrine of white supremacy in the Protestant South without the backing of a white Jesus.

Another group of people who manipulated Jesus’ race for destructive purposes were the Nazis in Germany. Jesus being a Jew is a major problem for anti-Semitics in general, and especially for a group of people who wanted to exterminate the Jews from the human race. In his article “The Nazi Quest for an Aryan Jesus,” Peter M. Head writes, “Hitler was personally hostile to Christianity and yet publicly willing to use Christian vocabulary to bolster his position, especially in the early years after 1933” (70). He also quotes Hitler as saying, “Jesus most certainly was not a Jew. The Jews would never have handed one of their own people to the Roman courts; they would have condemned Him themselves…. Jesus fought against the materialism of His age, and, therefore, against the Jews” (Head 55-56). This insistence and racist rationalizing that Jesus was not a Jew makes sense, because how else could he justify the Holocaust? He needed to convince or at least pacify a nation, the majority of whom identified as Christian, with proof that not only was Jesus not a Jew, Jesus fought against the Jews.

Regardless of religious affiliations or lack there-of, it cannot be denied that Jesus Christ was and still is an influential historical figure. While the default image of Jesus is that of a white man, there is more acceptance today of non-white Jesus figures – for instance, the stained glass black Jesus in a certain church in Birmingham, Alabama. As a society we need to be aware of the history of Jesus’ image being used in justify everything from racist ideals to outright genocide. There is something wrong when a man who reportedly preached a philosophy of brotherly love is being used as a symbol for such a hateful, violent organization as the Ku Klux Klan.

I have not seen any photos of Vishnu or the Buddha, but their images/features mostly seem to be depictions of the peoples of their country of origin.

Why is Jesus so persistently depicted otherwise in Europe and Merica?

[JKLivin]

If it weren't so "important" for Jesus to be white, there wouldn't be so many images of a white man. Of course this imagery predates our modern times, but the modern insistence/persistance is telling.

When asked to picture Jesus, most of us will automatically conjure a mental image of a brown or blonde-haired, blue-eyed, light-skinned angelic man. However, according to the Bible, Jesus was Jewish – he most likely would have had darker, olive skin tone and dark curly hair, at the very least. He would have looked like someone with Middle-Eastern ethnic origins rather than someone with Western or Northern European features. The problem with depicting this great spiritual leader with dark skin and hair is that throughout much of the history of Christianity, white Europeans and Americans have used religion as an excuse for oppression and genocide of dark-skinned people – people who may have looked similar to Jesus.

The Ku Klux Klan in the United States used the emblem of the white Jesus to explain and justify their doctrine of white supremacy. The 1915 film Birth of a Nation, which tells a very racist “history” of Reconstruction-era United States, did much to spur the growth of the KKK in the early 20th century. Write Edward Blum and Paul Harvey in their book The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America: “White crowds all over the nation were riveted. They gasped when white actors in blackface pursued white women to rape them. They cheered as Klansmen rode to avenge the South. And they experienced relief when Jesus stretched his hands over the nation the Klan had saved” (141). The image of a white Jesus became symbolic of the KKK as savior of the United States, saving it from the scourge of lesser races. A 1965 Saturday Evening Post article reports about “Fierce-eyed preachers, most of them self-ordained, [who] began to shout in public the twisted doctrine they had proclaimed in the secrecy of the Klaverns – that Jesus Christ was not a Jew, that the Pope of Rome was Anti-Christ, that the Negro was a beast that must be destroyed” (Martin and Fairly 28). Martin and Fairly go on to describe the attitude of people attending the KKK rallies: “The ignorant and frightened men and women who join the Klan claim to be uplifted by this savage doctrine. To them the Klan is a religion, a holy crusade. In North Carolina, a robed Klansman told reporters: ‘….When I put on this robe it’s a grand feeling. It’s white – as pure as Jesus Christ….’” (28). The KKK would have found it more difficult to perpetuate their doctrine of white supremacy in the Protestant South without the backing of a white Jesus.

Another group of people who manipulated Jesus’ race for destructive purposes were the Nazis in Germany. Jesus being a Jew is a major problem for anti-Semitics in general, and especially for a group of people who wanted to exterminate the Jews from the human race. In his article “The Nazi Quest for an Aryan Jesus,” Peter M. Head writes, “Hitler was personally hostile to Christianity and yet publicly willing to use Christian vocabulary to bolster his position, especially in the early years after 1933” (70). He also quotes Hitler as saying, “Jesus most certainly was not a Jew. The Jews would never have handed one of their own people to the Roman courts; they would have condemned Him themselves…. Jesus fought against the materialism of His age, and, therefore, against the Jews” (Head 55-56). This insistence and racist rationalizing that Jesus was not a Jew makes sense, because how else could he justify the Holocaust? He needed to convince or at least pacify a nation, the majority of whom identified as Christian, with proof that not only was Jesus not a Jew, Jesus fought against the Jews.

Regardless of religious affiliations or lack there-of, it cannot be denied that Jesus Christ was and still is an influential historical figure. While the default image of Jesus is that of a white man, there is more acceptance today of non-white Jesus figures – for instance, the stained glass black Jesus in a certain church in Birmingham, Alabama. As a society we need to be aware of the history of Jesus’ image being used in justify everything from racist ideals to outright genocide. There is something wrong when a man who reportedly preached a philosophy of brotherly love is being used as a symbol for such a hateful, violent organization as the Ku Klux Klan.

I have not seen any photos of Vishnu or the Buddha, but their images/features mostly seem to be depictions of the peoples of their country of origin.

Why is Jesus so persistently depicted otherwise in Europe and Merica?

Like I said, the pic you used is not necessarily “White.” I don’t care for the classic blonde-haired blue-eyed depictions, either, and would agree that they have racist undertones.

I do think there is a range of hair, skin-tones, eye-color, and facial features among Semitic peoples. Many Old Testament scholars interpret the depiction of King David as “ruddy” to mean that he had red hair, which was thought to be a signifier of good luck or being special in God’s eyes. I doubt the average person would think of Jesus as a ginger, either.

[Shirley]

I started to say that I didn't know why I clicked on this video, since I don't think I've watched one by Steve Schmidt in close to 2 years, and I've never cared for Van Jones very much. But, I clicked on it because it was short. And, when someone is right...

[jfish26]

[JKLivin]

At least he’s not laughing about it.

[MICHHAWK]

if a presidential candidate says they are going to do something. i know they will not.

it's called being a cagey veteran.

[BiggDick]

I still think his Achilles heel - which is to say - the MAGA crowd finally realizing he's full of shit - will be ordinary folks's's economic matters.

[Overlander]

I still think his Achilles heel - which is to say - the MAGA crowd finally realizing he's full of shit - will be ordinary folks's's economic matters.

But, I was told that this result is EXACTLY why they preferred a convicted felon and failed businessman over someone who giggles a bit.

Oh well, it is a small price to pay to watch Mexicans suffer I assume.

[BiggDick]

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see whether Trump too goes for some messaging like, “if you’re worried about the cost of food and housing and healthcare maybe yer just stoopid cuz actually the economy’s doing great!”

[Overlander]

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see whether Trump too goes for some messaging like, “if you’re worried about the cost of food and housing and healthcare maybe yer just stoopid cuz actually the economy’s doing great!”

Sorry, no bait on this hook....

[Shirley]

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see whether Trump too goes for some messaging like, “if you’re worried about the cost of food and housing and healthcare maybe yer just stoopid cuz actually the economy’s doing great!”

If you're unable to distinguish the differences between the two major parties on those issues, congratulations. You're right where the party that's determined to give people like me who don't need them even more tax breaks, i.e Republicans, want you.

[Shirley]

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see whether Trump too goes for some messaging like, “if you’re worried about the cost of food and housing and healthcare maybe yer just stoopid cuz actually the economy’s doing great!”

Sorry, no bait on this hook....

But wait! Don't you know that:

There's no difference between the two parties

and

Both sides do it.

[randylahey]

The irony of this thread title is amazing. American did fail, the last 4 years, and that's how trump got reelected

[Overlander]

The irony of this thread title is amazing. American did fail, the last 4 years, and that's how trump got reelected

Of course. Enjoy.

[Shirley]

The irony of this thread title is amazing. American did fail, the last 4 years, and that's how trump got reelected

If an S&P 500 that gained 26% in 2023 and 23.31% in 2024 is "failing", more "failing", please.

Think about it Randy... Imagine for a moment that you're like japhy, and you have millions of dollars invested in the stock market. If only one of those millions is invested in an S&P 500 index fund, you made $260,000 in 2023 under Biden, and (assuming you don't reinvest the $260K you made in 2023), in 2024, you made $231,000. That's almost half a million dollars your $1,000,000 made in only the last two years under President Biden.

Talk about Biden "failing" seems kind of silly, when you look at it that way, doesn't it? Why the bull shit? Can Trump not be "Trump" without his cult members making up lies to give their cult leader a figurative reach around? Aren't you better than that?

And, because japhy's made soooo much $ under the Biden Administration, it was incumbent upon you and the rest of the cult to elect Trump so japhy won't have to pay much, if anything, on the proceeds.

tia for the tax cuts he so richly deserves.