Trump's Supporters EXPLAINED
(https://www.smdp.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MadPicture2.jpg)
I know there are a great many people who can not understand why, after all that we've seen and heard, so many people continue to support Donald J. Trump. Today, for example, we found out that Trump has always known how deadly COVID-19 is and yet, he willfully misled the American people about the dangers of this disease. It's essentially the most egregious crime ever committed by any president in American history... a crime that has led to the deaths of nearly 200,000 innocent American civilians.
Incredibly, Trump's base are out there tonight, still trying to defend him. So I thought I would explain to everyone what, in my opinion, is the basic, underlying psychology of the typical die-hard Trump supporter.
I'll keep it brief, because this really isn't too hard to understand...
A segment of our population (around 30%) are frightened, hateful little racists and xenophobes. They have always been that way... they just did their best (in most cases) to hide it, because they knew how unpopular such behavior can be. But when Trump came along, those people believed that, because he was a rich and famous guy, he somehow validated their hatred and their fears. That is why they continue to cling to Trump... like flies cling to dog shit.
So long as Trump remains in office, those rotten and hopelessly bewildered people believe that their hateful, nasty behavior is righteous and correct. I mean, if the president can do it, then so can they... right..? So no matter how horrible Trump is revealed to be, they will still glom onto him and viciously defend him. They don't care if Trump is a career criminal. They don't care if Trump is an inept fraud. Amazingly, they don't care if Trump is a serial rapist, who once violently raped a 13-year-old girl in Jeffrey Epstein's apartment. To make things even more evil and twisted, Trump told that poor young girl to wear a blonde wig, so she would look more like his own daughter.
They don't even care if Trump's deliberate lies about the coronavirus may have caused a hundred thousand Americans to trust him, and thus fail to take the proper precautions. Those people are now dead. Dead and gone forever, because they believed President Donald Trump.
But still, the legions of twisted Trumptards don't care. All they know is that, for the first time in their lives, Trump has enabled them to display their absolute worst behavior openly and publicly. Which they very much enjoy, of course. Just look at their faces, in that collection of photos of Trump supporters. Do they look like sane and rational people to you..? Or do they look more like an irrational mob, ready to grab their torches and pitchforks, and chase the imaginary Frankenstein monster into the burning windmill..? In their case, that Frankenstein monster is "anybody who isn't just like us." The last time we saw anything as sickening as this was during the rise of the Third Reich, in the Germany of the 1930's.
The rest of us know what we have to do. But if any of you are still hoping that somehow, Trump's hardcore base will have an epiphany and then turn back into decent human beings again... then just forget it. They're too far gone, at this point.
I agree; they are the absolute DREGS of society. If there's anything positive that's come out of this nightmare of a presidency, it is that it has revealed the true faces of these degenerates. We know who are they now, and the people around them know who they are. They can't hide their hateful nature anymore. Their reputations will never recover.
These people are disgusting. By the way, I would be horrified and embarrassed to ever be seen at a "Trump rally." I feel sorry for that small child in the top left picture.
They are a bunch of Karens basically.
Have you sen the way the Trumptards are trying to defend Trump today..? It's in relation to Trump's lies about COVID-19.
Get this...
They're saying that all of this is Bob Woodward's fault. I shit you not. Their "logic" is as follows: if Woodward thought that Trump had said anything bad, then he should have released his tapes a lot sooner. But since he didn't, it automatically means that Trump's comments weren't bad at all and in fact, Trump is now fully exonerated.
And it gets even better. They've even gone so far as to allege that Woodward is working with the DNC and they deliberately held off on the tapes until right before the election. Just to smear Trump.
In short: Woodward held off on releasing his taped conversations with Trump, therefore Trump is innocent. Nevermind what Trump actually said, nevermind that Trump willfully deceived the American people about COVID, nevermind all of the people who have died, nevermind the fact that Trump's lies have effectively amounted to a horrific case of negligent homicide on a massive scale... nevermind any of that. Facts don't matter.
See, this is the irrational behavior of evil cultists in action.
Let's revisit the past again...
About a decade ago, right here on this Forum, I was telling people to "buy guns and learn how to use them." And I said why: because at that time, I believed that America was headed toward a period of violent internal conflict.
That was long before Donald Trump ran for office. Remember, this was 10 years ago that I was saying such things. Trump was just some rich douche on a silly TV show back then.
Most of you thought it was crazy talk. It's okay, I expected that most of you would. "Wait... everything is fine right now. So why is crazy Tessera telling us to arm ourselves..?"
I'll tell you why: back then, I recognized something that I think most people are either oblivious to, or in denial about. It's this: ever since the events of 9/11/2000, America has been steadily devolving into a paranoid, demoralized and bitterly divided society.
Trump is nothing in all of this... he's just a symptom of the larger disease. I mean, seriously, could a psychotic clown like Donald Trump have gotten elected in the America of 30 or 40 years ago..? Of course not... he would have been laughed right out of the race.
So how did I know that it would come to this, all those years ago..? Simple: because I've studied history. The societal disease that I was sensing a decade ago was eerily reminiscent of what Germany went through, in the years following the first World War. Germany was soundly defeated and shamed in that war. Everyone felt demoralized, everyone felt angry and hurt, everyone wanted someone to blame and everyone wanted vengeance. All they needed was a target, for all of that pent-up hysteria.
Congratulations, America: the same things have now happened here. It's just that in this modern day and age, the disease has done a slow burn -- instead of what happened in 1930's Germany, where everything fell apart and went to hell within a few years time. It doesn't matter -- the result is the same: everyone is angrily looking for enemies, either real or imagined.
In other news: yesterday, Donald Trump openly stated that he will not accept the results of the 2020 election and that we should just, in his own words, "throw out the ballots." Get the picture..?
Okay so, for those of you who thought I was crazy to say "Buy guns and learn how to use them," a decade ago.... please take a good look around. Do you still think I was crazy..? Well maybe you do... but I don't. There comes a time when you need to perk up and say "Holy shit... I guess it really can happen here."
(https://static.nieuwsblad.be/Assets/Images_Upload/2010/11/21/arbeitap.jpg?maxheight=280&maxwidth=400)
"I rly don't care do u?" ~ Melania Trump
Quote from: Tessera on September 24, 2020, 06:45:39 AM
Let's revisit the past again...
About a decade ago, right here on this Forum, I was telling people to "buy guns and learn how to use them." And I said why: because at that time, I believed that America was headed toward a period of violent internal conflict.
That was long before Donald Trump ran for office. Remember, this was 10 years ago that I was saying such things. Trump was just some rich douche on a silly TV show back then.
Most of you thought it was crazy talk. It's okay, I expected that most of you would. "Wait... everything is fine right now. So why is crazy Tessera telling us to arm ourselves..?"
I'll tell you why: back then, I recognized something that I think most people are either oblivious to, or in denial about. It's this: ever since the events of 9/11/2000, America has been steadily devolving into a paranoid, demoralized and bitterly divided society.
Trump is nothing in all of this... he's just a symptom of the larger disease. I mean, seriously, could a psychotic clown like Donald Trump have gotten elected in the America of 30 or 40 years ago..? Of course not... he would have been laughed right out of the race.
So how did I know that it would come to this, all those years ago..? Simple: because I've studied history. The societal disease that I was sensing a decade ago was eerily reminiscent of what Germany went through, in the years following the first World War. Germany was soundly defeated and shamed in that war. Everyone felt demoralized, everyone felt angry and hurt, everyone wanted someone to blame and everyone wanted vengeance. All they needed was a target, for all of that pent-up hysteria.
Congratulations, America: the same things have now happened here. It's just that in this modern day and age, the disease has done a slow burn -- instead of what happened in 1930's Germany, where everything fell apart and went to hell within a few years time. It doesn't matter -- the result is the same: everyone is angrily looking for enemies, either real or imagined.
In other news: yesterday, Donald Trump openly stated that he will not accept the results of the 2020 election and that we should just, in his own words, "throw out the ballots." Get the picture..?
Okay so, for those of you who thought I was crazy to say "Buy guns and learn how to use them," a decade ago.... please take a good look around. Do you still think I was crazy..? Well maybe you do... but I don't. There comes a time when you need to perk up and say "Holy shit... I guess it really can happen here."
(https://static.nieuwsblad.be/Assets/Images_Upload/2010/11/21/arbeitap.jpg?maxheight=280&maxwidth=400)
"I rly don't care do u?" ~ Melania Trump
I have to agree.
I read your post and I agree with the entirety of it.
What stuns me is that even as recent as 2017, 2018, and 2019 people laughed off the idea that Trump wouldn't leave peacefully if he lost reelection while his fanatical supporters just continued promoting his authoritarian behavior. Meanwhile, no matter how undemocratic his public statements were, or how inhumane his policies were, Trump would always outdo himself within a month or two. And I would tell people on the LEFT, who didn't take this threat seriously:
"Do you not see where this is headed? Trump is empowered by his fanatical lowlife supporters, and they have shown that there is NOTHING that they won't do in order to achieve their sick ends -- even if it means destroying the principles this country was founded on. The second you think they couldn't get any worse, they will ALWAYS prove you wrong."
Now here we are in 2020 with a president who doesn't want to give up his power if he loses a democratic election. I saw it coming down the pike years ago. Sad that most didn't.
Quote from: Will Never on September 24, 2020, 09:14:20 PM
I read your post and I agree with the entirety of it.
What stuns me is that even as recent as 2017, 2018, and 2019 people laughed off the idea that Trump wouldn't leave peacefully if he lost reelection while his fanatical supporters just continued promoting his authoritarian behavior. Meanwhile, no matter how undemocratic his public statements were, or how inhumane his policies were, Trump would always outdo himself within a month or two. And I would tell people on the LEFT, who didn't take this threat seriously:
"Do you not see where this is headed? Trump is empowered by his fanatical lowlife supporters, and they have shown that there is NOTHING that they won't do in order to achieve their sick ends -- even if it means destroying the principles this country was founded on. The second you think they couldn't get any worse, they will ALWAYS prove you wrong."
Now here we are in 2020 with a president who doesn't want to give up his power if he loses a democratic election. I saw it coming down the pike years ago. Sad that most didn't.
It's like the left keep shooting itself in the foot.
Cat:
Unfortunately, true progressives in the USA have been undermined and thwarted by a toxic slice of the left who in many ways aren't actually left-leaning at all. These people represent a small portion of the left, but they are still prolific and outspoken enough that they have succeeded in sabotaging the progressive movement. Not only have they helped to enable the election of Donald Trump, but they openly and unabashedly supported his election in 2016, many even voting for him. Many plan to do so again this November. Do you know who I'm talking about? They are the same people who now call themselves the "Never Biden movement." In 2016, they were calling themselves the "Bernie or Bust movement" or the "Never Hillary movement." They are also often known as the "Burn it all down movement." I don't know if any of you heard of the "Jimmy Dore Show," but its shithead host and his toxic audience embody the so-called "leftists" I'm talking about. These people also believe that Russia never interfered in our elections, they unequivocally deny the Mueller report's findings about interference and the Russian trolls, and just like Donald Trump, they believe the whole investigation is a hoax. There is one difference: Donald Trump states that it was a hoax designed to hurt his presidency and future reelection. But in the small minds of the "leftists" in question, Russiagate as they call it was a hoax invented by Democrats for the purpose of explaining why Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump. If that doesn't make sense to you, don't worry. It's because it doesn't.
We all know that the Bernie Sanders campaign got fucked over in 2016. There is no denying that we progressives were cheated out one of our most ideal candidates by the shitty wheeling and dealing that was going on within the Democratic party in order to undermine Sanders and bolster Clinton. Like, DUH. But after he lost the primary, the damage had been done and most progressives who saw the bigger picture were smart and knew the danger that Donald Trump presented to the most disadvantaged and vulnerable among us. I sure as hell knew: I voted for Sanders in the Connecticut Democratic primary but when he lost, I voted for Clinton in the general election. Don't get me wrong: I have no love for Hillary Clinton. But as deeply flawed as Clinton was, she was not an authoritarian monster who would try to undermine our elections by allowing a foreign power to influence them. Clinton would have never elected what will be three ultra-conservative ideologue justices to the Supreme Court for LIFE TERMS who will make decisions that will affect civil liberties in this country and other important issues such as gerrymandering and campaign finance laws FOR DECADES TO COME.
That is what DONALD TRUMP has wrought. And sadly, many of the toxic left voted for either him or an irrelevant candidate like anti-vaxxer, anti-wireless Jill Stein or they wrote in an already defeated Bernie Sanders. Brilliant...
Just think of the critical moments in American history when it was the Supreme Court who expanded our civil liberties when Congress wouldn't:
Roe v. Wade -- protected a woman's liberty to have an abortion. This decision is now in danger of being overturned with an increasingly conservative majority under Donald Trump.
Miranda v. Arizona -- which established our Miranda Rights. We all know that one.
Brown v. Board -- which banned racial segregation in public schools and laid the groundwork for an end to segregation totally.
We take these decisions for granted, but they would never have taken place if not for liberal justices on the Supreme Court. The burn it all down people thought "It's just 4 years, so we can get back at the DNC for screwing Bernie." However, we know it's not "just 4 years," and we might not ever recover from some of the damage. Now we have Donald Trump about to nominate a true fundamentalist nutjob, named Amy Barrett, to the court. She belongs to what is nothing less than a religious pseudo-cult called the People of Praise. Look her and them up on wikipedia... and be shocked. Now think about not only about how much progress we will miss out on due to this insanely conservative majority Supreme Court, but also how much progress that we already made but are now in danger of losing if any one of those landmark cases are overturned. And there is no shortage of Americans who want to see Roe v. Wade overturned, sadly.
By the way, you can forget Medicare For All. The Supreme Court nearly struck down the Affordable Care Act in 2012. The decision was 5-4. If the ACA was nearly struck down, do you think we're ever going get socialized medicine with a conservative supermajority of 6-3?
Maybe next time the short-sighted and short-tempered idiots who want to vote for irrelevant losers like Jill Stein or Tulsi Gabbard will get a fucking clue.
Quote from: Will Never on September 26, 2020, 12:38:06 AMI don't know if any of you heard of the "Jimmy Dore Show," but its shithead host and his toxic audience embody the so-called "leftists" I'm talking about.
I'm familiar with Jimmy Dore. He's a smarmy little douche who got fired from The Young Turks a couple of years ago, when it became apparent that he is NOT a progressive at all. I'm not sure what Jimmy Dore is, honestly. On the surface, Dore appears to be a failed stand-up comic, who is only slightly left-of-center. I've watched his show a few times and every time, it seems to boil down to "Everyone else is wrong about everything. Only we, The Chosen Few, know what's really going on." Snarky-ness and unreasoning cynicism abound. Everything is the fault of the Boomers, Millennials are all victims, GenZ are dummies... you get the picture. It's just more ageism, tribalism and unjustified condescension. I've never heard of the Jimmy Dore crew ever taking any actual action on ANYTHING, ever. All they ever do is whine, and then pat each other on the back.
I've seen it in small clips because I could never stomach watching a whole show. His wife on the show "the miserable liberal Stefane" or whatever she is called, and who also fancies herself a comedian, might be more of an idiot than even Jimmy is. And that's saying a lot.
DONALD TRUMP IS BROKE
Donald Trump is not a billionaire. In fact... Donald Trump is almost totally broke. You may recall that not too long ago, the courts ordered that Trump's tax returns be released to law enforcement. Trump fought very, very hard to prevent that from happening but as usual, he lost that battle. Trump has lost nearly every court case that he's ever been involved in... and this one was huge.
Well, the NY Times managed to obtain Trump's taxes from the past 15 years or so and guess what they found..? Read this article and find out:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html
The gist of it is that Trump has paid no taxes, has no money and has been scamming the IRS for a very long time. He has also lied to everyone about his financial status for years. Somehow or other, Trump has managed to piss away something like a billion dollars during the past 40 years. He now officially ranks as one of the biggest failures in the history of American business.
TRUMP HAS NO MONEY, FOLKS. THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES.
Quote from: Tessera on September 28, 2020, 06:17:22 AM
DONALD TRUMP IS BROKE
Donald Trump is not a billionaire. In fact... Donald Trump is almost totally broke. You may recall that not too long ago, the courts ordered that Trump's tax returns be released to law enforcement. Trump fought very, very hard to prevent that from happening but as usual, he lost that battle. Trump has lost nearly every court case that he's ever been involved in... and this one was huge.
Well, the NY Times managed to obtain Trump's taxes from the past 15 years or so and guess what they found..? Read this article and find out:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html
The gist of it is that Trump has paid no taxes, has no money and has been scamming the IRS for a very long time. He has also lied to everyone about his financial status for years. Somehow or other, Trump has managed to piss away something like a billion dollars during the past 40 years. He now officially ranks as one of the biggest failures in the history of American business.
TRUMP HAS NO MONEY, FOLKS. THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES.
That really should't be surprising because a lot of his businesses were scams and failures.
Quote from: Blankspace on September 28, 2020, 07:18:54 AM
That really should't be surprising because a lot of his businesses were scams and failures.
Predictably, Trump is not handling these public revelations very well at all...(http://www.tessmage.com/images/misc/trump_wild_hair_fucked.jpg)
(http://www.tessmage.com/images/misc/trump_art_of_the_steal_book.jpg)
This is hilarious.
Quote from: Will Never on September 29, 2020, 03:14:57 PM
This is hilarious.
I'm watching the first presidential debate right now. In all seriousness, Trump looks and sounds like a ranting, raving lunatic. Chris Wallace has actually been shouting (seriously, shouting) at Trump a few times, because Trump won't stop interrupting Biden. It's like watching a 14-year-old brat, who just got caught stealing money from his dad's wallet and is frantically trying to blame everybody else for the theft.
Predictably, Trump is fabricating most of his answers. It's a non-stop stream of blatant lies and childish personal attacks. Definitely not the behavior of an adult... let alone an American president.
This is the sickest debate I've ever seen, and I've seen a bunch. Trump is hanging himself right now. He really looks like a hysterical maniac. Trump belongs in a state psychiatric hospital.
The desperation is palpable at this point. Each day is more shameful than the last. This country has become the laughing stock of the world, with its government and the lives of 300 million people having been manipulated solely for the benefit of a madman. What will the history books say about this period of American history, I wonder.
Quote from: Will Never on October 01, 2020, 06:41:41 AMWhat will the history books say about this period of American history, I wonder.
I think they'll say something similar to what I said in this post: http://www.tessmage.com/forum/index.php?topic=60659.msg107460#msg107460
We're living in a time where roughly one-third of Americans are so consumed with hate and fear (paranoia, really), that they've effectively lost their ability to engage in critical thinking. In that post, I asked an important question: could an evil clown like Donald Trump have been elected in the America of 30 or 40 years ago..? No, of course not. Just like Hitler couldn't have been elected before his era came along. This country has been suffering from a degenerative disease ever since the events of 9/11 and a destructive wacko like Trump has simply capitalized on that disease.
Just look at the photo montage that I included in my OP. Look at the faces of those people. All of them look furious, or hysterical. A few of them are literally giving the finger to the world. Those are not the faces of rational adults... those are the faces of frightened chimpanzees, who are lashing out at their imaginary captors. You can go to the monkey house in any zoo in the world and see faces like theirs. I would imagine that we saw similar faces at every public witch burning during the Middle Ages.
I missed this thread when you first posted it, but there's an interesting psychological tidbit in this:
There is a fraction of human beings (around 10%) that has this primal desire for a powerful authority figure. They want to be ruled, they want to be told what to do, and they want to be able to defer to the leader for their morality, because it makes them feel safe.
Of course, personally I'd blame this segment's failings on shitty parenting and a bad upbringing, but these people exist.
I also think that they neatly overlap with the segment of insane nativists and xenophobes.
When Trump does one of his wannabe-Mussolini moments, they adore it rather than are horrified by it, because it's precisely what they want to hear from Daddy Government. Just put the right strongman in charge, and everything will be alright. They can go to bed and switch off their brains.
As for Jimmy Dore
Fuck that guy. I remember in the run-up to 2016, he was on The Young Turks saying he wanted Trump to win, because he'd shock the left into turning out to vote next time and getting a real progressive in power. How did that end up, shit for brains? The time for that sort of long-term play is when the opposing candidate isn't a cryptofascist insane troll. Maybe there's a time for that discussion when the opposition is a principled conservative, but the GOP in the 2010s is neither principled nor conservative. Even if Sanders won the 2020 nomination, even if he'd beaten Trump in the election, it will take at least four years to clean up the mess Trump left. Biden's presidency will be a purely janitorial job, cleaning off all of the feces that the monkey has coated the Oval Office with. Oh, did I mention the damage that Trump has done to America's reputation? That stink may never come off.
Didn't he get fired for spitting in someone's mouth during an altercation? Pure class.
Quote from: StarWrecker on October 03, 2020, 03:56:45 PM
There is a fraction of human beings (around 10%) that has this primal desire for a powerful authority figure. They want to be ruled, they want to be told what to do, and they want to be able to defer to the leader for their morality, because it makes them feel safe.
I've talked about this also. It's the R-Complex... the so-called "reptile brain," that is responsible for that type of behavior:
(1) Fear
(2) Aggression
(3) Territoriality
(4) Tribalism (which derives from #3)
(5) The willingness to follow leaders blindly
All of those behaviors are aspects of the "reptile brain." In primitive and ancient times, those behaviors served us well, because they augmented our survival traits. But today, in the modern world, those behaviors cause far more harm than good and are merely ugly remnants... primordial leftovers from our slow upward evolution from reptiles, to mammals and then finally to humans.
Trump's supporters are, therefore, displaying the most primal, primitive behavior that a human being is capable of. They don't represent the future and in fact, the future holds no place for them. No, they represent our distant, reptilian past. They're just frightened little animals, huddling together for warmth and mutual protection, and worshiping at the feet of their imagined savior and protector.
I mean, the reptilian brain model isn't an accurate way of seeing these behaviours (it refers to the basal ganglia whereas these fight or flight behaviors come from other, more recently evolved parts of the brain quite often) but it is true that this is raw fight-or-flight survival mode behaviour that really should have no place in a civilized society. We should have been past thinking that way when we settled down to build cities rather than being roaming hunter-gatherers.
I'm wondering why a certain subset of people are dominated by these impulses. If you've heard of Maslow's hierarchy, it says that higher human drives are irrelevant when lower ones aren't satisfied...
(https://carrothealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/20191223-Maslow.png)
Which means that these people are stuck on the second-lowest rung of the ladder. They can't care about relationships with other people (rung 3), or higher social functions (4 and 5), because they feel so deeply, profoundly unsafe that they need to rally around a big man with a big club. (In Trump's case it's a sand wedge).
Why do they feel unsafe? What is there to be afraid of, in an era when war between nation-states is almost obsolete, when hunger is less prevalent than ever, and when violent crime is statistically less common than it's ever been (barring a recent uptick in the late 2010's).
Quote from: StarWrecker on October 03, 2020, 07:41:57 PM
Why do they feel unsafe? What is there to be afraid of
I think we're back to territoriality again. Think about it. Once you've staked out your territory... what would be your next instinct..? To protect and defend that territory, yes..? Against all trespassers, whether real or imaginary. You'll live in fear of losing your territory every day. Soon you start worrying that anyone who isn't exactly the same as you are is a potential invader.
Whoa, you know... I just realised that this whole "reptilian brain" idea gives a whole new meaning to that popular reptilian conspiracy theory around the world.
You do learn something new every day.
Quote from: Drazgar on October 04, 2020, 12:48:53 PM
Whoa, you know... I just realised that this whole "reptilian brain" idea gives a whole new meaning to that popular reptilian conspiracy theory around the world.
LOL... you mean the UFO crap..?
I'll just respond to those kinds of rumors real quick:
There may be life on other worlds. There may be other civilizations. Some of them may even have figured out a way to give Einstein the finger and travel faster than light. Some may even have visited the Earth on numerous occasions. I have no trouble accepting any of those ideas.
But... there is absolutely no way that I would accept the notion that extraterrestrial life forms look ANYTHING like the life forms on our planet. No to reptilians, no to little greys, none of that crap is acceptable to me. Why should life forms that evolved on a totally different planet, within a totally different ecosystem, under what may be totally different environmental conditions, even slightly resemble ANY of the life on this planet..? So when I hear people claiming to have seen little grey anthropoids, with two legs, two arms, a head and bilateral vertebrate symmetry... well I'm sorry, but you lost me. Same for the imaginary reptilians.
Those are all Earth life forms... so if anyone really saw something like that, then it didn't come from elsewhere. It came from right here on our planet. Or they may have been artificial constructs of some kind. Or else they simply imagined it.
Convergent and parallel evolution can make organisms that evolved in similar, though isolated, ecosystems develop similar traits that help them thrive in those ecosystems, like the independent evolution of flight by birds (dinosaurs) and bats, by evolving the forelimbs into wings. Of course, many insects also fly and their mechanisms for doing so are dramatically different. It's not impossible to imagine that a creature that evolved in Earth-like conditions might somewhat resemble Earth creatures that formed under the same sets of stresses, though the convergent evolution of large numbers of similar features evolving in a single alien organism to make it a strong analog to an Earth organism is ridiculously unlikely. And of course no other alien planet is likely to be so close to Earth-like conditions to evolve similar orders of life.
Indeed, it may be difficult or impossible for humans or any highly evolved creatures to survive on alien worlds that evolved alien biospheres and alien biochemistry without life support or extensive terraforming/alien-forming (to destroy much of the native ecology and replace it with one the colonizers can co-exist with). Just imagine humans settling a beautiful green world, with independently-evolved photosynthesis and an oxygen-rich atmosphere, able to support many orders of large, advanced flora- and fauna-analogs operating on carbon-based biology...and finding that some weird microorganism or spore just happens to find the dark, moist environment of human sinuses and lungs to be a perfect medium for growth. They don't even suck blood or anything...they just proliferate, feeding off of other microorganisms in the inhaled air, and grow until they kill their host. The immune system has nothing to engage against because of different biology...the growth may as well be dirt or something.
All that aside, it is likely that the ability to stand erect (or at least tall) and observe one's surroundings may be a popular evolutionary adaptation to defend against predators. Bilateral symmetry is an effective, efficient body plan (though radial symmetry has its uses), complex manipulators capable of tool development and use are pretty much required for the development of advanced technology (and are likely to have evolved from limbs or limb-like structures that originally developed for swimming, walking or even flying), positionable sensory receptors capable of high resolution perception of the environment are likewise necessary (likely to be placed on a structure which can be moved somewhat independently), and so on. So while it is beyond credulity to imagine that alien life forms might look like Vulcans or Klingons, it's not impossible for an alien to superficially resemble a humanoid bilateral structure with hands and eyes...though the "hands" may actually be masses of articulated tentacles, and the "eyes" may actually perceive magnetic and gravity fields, or data we have no conception of. Or they could be their genitalia. :D
On this planet, we have bipeds.
We also have starfish. And slime molds. And jellyfish. And plenty of other lifeforms that don't conform to the bilateral symmetry plan. And they evolved on the same planet as we did. Given enough time, I could even envision a day when cephalopods (squid, octopus) become sentient and begin to develop technology.
An alien planet, which could have a completely different environment, is not likely to produce complex organisms that resemble Earth life. That's just my opinion, of course.
Quote from: Tessera on October 04, 2020, 03:14:28 PM
LOL... you mean the UFO crap..?
That too, ranging from UFO ideas right until people start getting crazy about reptilian "masters" secretly ruling over our human world from the shadows (recently this shit also started being actively mixed with another idea of USSR still existing de jure and whole CIS being illegitimate) even without this UFO foundation. Because, you know, glorious Ruses/Aryans are all descendants of the God(s) and currently (in some most extreme cases - since like 17st century) being oppressed by, of course, those mischievous Reptiloids. At some point of our shared evolution they became so smart and powerful so it all happened to be what it is now on our planet. :D Jews are also somewhere close, as usual.
You'd be insanely surprised how popular this whole shit became recently here, especially between older people. Well, I should probably say now "between Soviet people" because at this point of history it's pretty much clear that they (a good portion of them at least) are like from "another world".
Let's try some "what ifs" for a second...
Imagine intelligent aliens who absorb nutriment through their skins. Or absorb it from the air around them. Or photosynthesize, like Earth vegetation does. Or maybe they "eat" electricity.
Imagine intelligent aliens whose bodies don't conform to ANY particular plan. They could be shapeless blobs, who extrude extensions from their central mass if and as they need them, in order to manipulate objects.
Imagine intelligent aliens who are essentially large, floating gas bags with tentacles. They pump heavy gases from their interiors and float about like balloons.
Imagine intelligent aliens who don't have a centralized brain, or anything resembling what we would call a nervous system. Every unit (notice I didn't say "cell") of their bodies interconnects and creates a great big brain. Their whole body is a brain, in other words. They'd be like colony creatures... with all of the smaller parts interconnected in such a way as to produce a highly intelligent super-organism.
Imagine intelligent aliens that employ some sort of hive system. Some of them would be smart, others would be mindless workers, and others would be the breeders. Robert Heinlein explored a similar idea in his novella "Starship Troopers."
I could go on and on... but nothing that I have suggested in this post is far-fetched, or outside the boundaries of organic science as we understand it. Nor is any of it even unlikely, given the enormous range of possibilities for organic lifeforms that evolved on entirely different planets.
So then, why should the aliens who supposedly have been visiting us here on the Earth look ANYTHING like us..? Why would they have a head at one end, feet at the other, two arms, two legs, two eyes and a mouth..? That's what Earth life looks like... not entirely alien life.
The answer is: anthropocentric-ism. Humans tend to automatically assume that if life developed a certain way on the Earth, then it probably developed in similar ways on other worlds. Despite the fact that there is absolutely no scientific reason to be thinking such things. All of that crap about "parallel evolution" and so forth is just that: crap. It's a convenient plot device in science fiction stories and TV shows, but it's also BAD SCIENCE to make presumptions about other worlds, based upon a single known model.
I agree with all that. I disregard most of those shadowy assumptions as a sort of "wishful thinking" of sad people in despair (which it mostly is). And probably of some too romantically inclined people, given just how the whole science fiction field is dominated by sexy alien girls (not that I'm trying to call it a bad thing, but still).
But still I find the aforementioned reptile brain idea funny because of its general irony. People are afraid of Reptiloids but... we ARE Reptiloids ourselves. :P :P :P
Trump supporters are very similar to the ignorant townspeople, who gathered like geese and threw tomatoes at witch burnings during the Middle Ages. Mindless fear and hatred. They are the most primitive people on the planet.
How To Respond To Trump Supporters Online
LESSON #1
Whenever you run up against a Trumptard online, you can bet that you'll be dealing with an egocentric, ignorant dumb fuck, who will desperately cling to Trump's Big Lie about the election.
You can fight with these people... as I have many times... and you can counter each and every single bit of their psycho-babble with great big piles of facts. It won't matter, because as I previously stated, these clowns are all VERY egocentric. Their fragile little egos won't permit them to openly admit that they've been full of shit, ever since they first supported Trump. These idiots are like Pavlov's dogs.
Well then...
Below is an example of a much better way to respond to the Trumptards, whenever you see one of them claiming that the 2020 election was rigged:
(http://www.tessmage.com/images/misc/libs_powerful_youtube_2021.jpg)
Do you see what I did there..?
Instead of getting into a back-and-forth pissing contest, which is what every single Trump troll thrives upon, I've shifted the conversation to "The libs are too powerful for you to defeat." :P
Remember what I said about Trump trolls being egocentric..? If you respond to them exactly as I have, they will almost certainly run away and refuse to reply. In fact, every time I respond that way to one of these morons, they almost never post a reply. Their heads would explode if they tried.
This is only one example of a larger strategy, when dealing with Trump trolls: try to use their own frail and wounded psychology against them. ;)
It isn't getting any better.
Nearly half of Republicans say 'a time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands,' new poll showsQuoteA new poll offers an alarming picture of GOP beliefs about democracy.
Almost half of Republicans said a time might come where they have to take the law into their own hands.
A majority of Republicans endorsed potentially using force to uphold the "traditional" America.
See more stories on Insider's business page.
Less than a year after a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol, nearly half of Republican voters (47%) say that "a time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands," per a new nationwide survey by George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs.
Quote from: Blankspace on July 29, 2021, 03:53:17 PM
Nearly half of Republicans say 'a time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands,' new poll shows
I'm not worried about it... not even a little bit. The media likes us to be worried and scared, because that's how they generate ratings.
Let's look at some actual numbers...
Currently, the Republican party has withered down to being only 24% of the total electorate. So, "half of Republicans" amounts to a tiny 12% of the electorate. Add to that the fact that a good percentage of them are frightened little pussies, who would never actually take up arms when the time came, and you're left with a very small number of right-wing psychos who wouldn't have a prayer of winning any real battles.
Lastly, the U.S. Armed Forces will not support a coup attempt by the Trump loonies. So if anybody starts any shit, then they'll be facing the most advanced military force on Earth. Their little civil war will be over and done with in a single day.
So like I said, I'm not worried. ;)
Dear Trump Trolls:
I have a couple of questions and maybe you can help me. 8)
When you decide each day to pick a fight with the libs on YouTube and elsewhere, do you ever stop to consider the fact that you people have lost nearly every single battle during the past five years..? Do you believe that one day, despite being hopelessly outnumbered, you will magically prevail and turn America into the right-wing Nazi paradise that you so obviously crave..?
How will that happen, exactly..? Just curious. ::)
Quote from: Tessera on August 14, 2021, 08:30:49 AM
Dear Trump Trolls:
I have a couple of questions and maybe you can help me. 8)
When you decide each day to pick a fight with the libs on YouTube and elsewhere, do you ever stop to consider the fact that you people have lost nearly every single battle during the past five years..? Do you believe that one day, despite being hopelessly outnumbered, you will magically prevail and turn America into the right-wing Nazi paradise that you so obviously crave..?
How will that happen, exactly..? Just curious. ::)
They are either bots or crazy people with no lives.
Yeah a lot of their support is manufactured through paid trolls and bots. How desperate. I can tell when they're en masse in certain videos by looking at the views to comment ratios. Videos that are under assault by bots have comment numbers that rival the view numbers, which makes no sense.
Quote from: Will Never on August 16, 2021, 01:35:01 AM
Yeah a lot of their support is manufactured through paid trolls and bots. How desperate. I can tell when they're en masse in certain videos by looking at the views to comment ratios. Videos that are under assault by bots have comment numbers that rival the view numbers, which makes no sense.
Not to mention a lot of them are blank accounts (have a name but no icon) that all make the same type of comments.
Many Germans behaved in similar ways, following the first world war.
They felt angry and demoralized after their humiliating defeat in that war, so they decided that Jewish and gypsy "invaders" were the people collectively responsible for all of their problems. We all know what happened next.
The right-wing in America today are behaving just like the fascists in Nazi Germany did. Xenophobia, primitive tribalism, unreasoning fear and rage, hysterical outbursts in public... it's all right there, folks. So do we sit back and allow history to repeat itself..?
When TYT gets it wrong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w1iR0WXLeM
This sort of denialism is along the lines of what I'd expect from dirtbags like Jimmy Dore, and this piece was honestly quite embarrassing to watch.
Ana and Jon: what are you doing? Something like over thirty people have the same symptoms and you think the victims either made it up or just have jetlag? These people have been working there for years. There is no reason to believe that they're all imagining illness or undergoing mass delusion. Their scans showed brain damage. Whose idea was it to run this piece and how did it make it past your production team? You guys are smarter than this. Please act like it!
Yeah I posted a comment under that video, a couple of days ago.
I said:
Quote from: Tessera on YouTube
I'll just mention that there has been evidence of hyper-sonic, as well as microwave weapons in development. For example, the Russians purportedly have them. Or.... if you're a believer in meta-science... Cuba is located fairly close to the so-called Bermuda Triangle.
I mentioned the Bermuda Triangle as a joke. Anyway, I'm open to the possibility of silent beam weapons already existing in our world.
Quote from: Will Never on August 31, 2021, 10:58:07 PM
When TYT gets it wrong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w1iR0WXLeM
This sort of denialism is along the lines of what I'd expect from dirtbags like Jimmy Dore, and this piece was honestly quite embarrassing to watch.
Ana and Jon: what are you doing? Something like over thirty people have the same symptoms and you think the victims either made it up or just have jetlag? These people have been working there for years. There is no reason to believe that they're all imagining illness or undergoing mass delusion. Their scans showed brain damage. Whose idea was it to run this piece and how did it make it past your production team? You guys are smarter than this. Please act like it!
Yea, if multiple people are coming down with the same or similar symptoms at the same place or area then there has to be something there.
I wanted to share this image...
(http://www.tessmage.com/images/freaks/trump_clown_daily_news_2016.jpg)
That's an issue of the NY Daily News, from back in the days of the 2016 primaries.... BEFORE Trump was the Republican nominee. ;)
It's not only hilarious, it also shows that initially, Rupert Murdoch (owner of Fox News) hated Donald Trump. Most NY'ers do, in fact.
We knew about Trump a long time before the rest of you did. He's a total piece of shit.
Coming soon, to a theater near you...
(http://www.tessmage.com/images/freaks/texas_zygote_hunters.jpg)
Graphic courtesy of Bill Maher.
Whattya say we just sell Texas back to Mexico and be done with them? We wouldn't even need to change our flag... just make Puerto Rico a state
and there ya go, we're back to 50 states again.
Encouraging people to inform on their friends and neighbors is un-American. Straight out of the totalitarian playbook of Hitler and Stalin. Truly "conservative" Supreme Court justices would have struck down the law on invasion of privacy issues alone. Which of course tells you they aren't really conservatives...they are right-wing ideologues, which is not the same thing. :P
I crap more intelligent and ethical legal minds than those of the Supreme Court's six conservatives every fucking day. This country really would be better served by the contents of my septic tank then the so-called "justices" we are cursed with now. Not to mention hundreds of Representatives and Senators (on both sides of the aisle, unfortunately). ::)
Biden has got to add at least four more justices to the court to kneecap the Trumpers. They decided to pick Gen Xers in their late forties so they could lock in their right-wing majority for decades? Biden should pick the most promising progressive law-school graduates who just passed the bar last Tuesday. And he needs to make those obstructionist Senate fucks Manchin and Sinema an offer they can't refuse. :P
Not that any of that will happen, of course. The whole thing is political theater to fuel the 24-hour news cycle while the billionaires vacuum up every last penny. >:(
Quote from: Cylnar on September 18, 2021, 09:20:01 AM
Not that any of that will happen, of course. The whole thing is political theater to fuel the 24-hour news cycle while the billionaires vacuum up every last penny. >:(
Speaking of which, check out this epic self-own by Tucker Carlson...
(http://www.tessmage.com/images/misc/tucker_carlson_danger_to_country.jpg)
That's an actual screenshot of Tucker's show on Fox the other night. It looks to me like one of the directors over at Fox was trying to send everyone a strong message about Tucker. :P
You can't make this shit up, man.
Quote from: Cylnar on September 18, 2021, 09:20:01 AMThis country really would be better served by the contents of my septic tank then the so-called "justices" we are cursed with now. Not to mention hundreds of Representatives and Senators (on both sides of the aisle, unfortunately). ::)
Okay, fine. Let's put them to the test...
The so-called "pro-life" hypocrites need to set up, administer and fully fund a system that will adopt, love and care for unwanted babies after they're born. Maybe you can force women to carry babies full term... but you sure as hell can't force her to love it, or want it. But we want those sacred, cherished babies to have good lives, don't we..?
Provide those babies with a healthy environment, make sure they're fed and receive medical care, buy them new clothes every year and then send them to college when they're old enough. Raise everyone's taxes
(GASP!) in that state, in order to pay for it all. Put your money where your mouth is, "pro-lifers." Let's see you do that.
We need to round up some of these pro-life nimrods and show them a human embryo in a Petrie dish. The real thing.... show them an actual, aborted human embryo in a dish. Then, play a game called "Find The Baby." Ask them all to take a look and then, point to the human baby, that they all seem to cherish and want to protect. Can you find it?
All they're gonna see is something that looks kind of like a tadpole, surrounded by a reddish looking blob of jelly. No babies... just a weird looking tadpole. We can finish up the experiment by asking them whether or not that tadpole in the Petrie dish has any legal rights.
Quote from: Tessera on September 20, 2021, 04:24:27 AM
That's an actual screenshot of Tucker's show on Fox the other night. It looks to me like one of the directors over at Fox was trying to send everyone a strong message about Tucker. :P
You can't make this shit up, man.
I hate Tucker Carlson with such great passion that I can hardly describe it. Even just ten years ago, it would have been unthinkable for someone like him to have existed on cable news!
NATURAL SELECTION AT WORK
(http://www.tessmage.com/images/misc/2021_covid_deaths_by_party.jpg)
Please take a minute to look closely at that graph.
The data on that graph shows that the people who support Trump the most are also the people who are DYING the most, from the Delta variant of COVID-19.
See, this is how natural selection works. Stupid people will do stupid things and die. Smart people will do smart things and preferentially survive. This is the way nature gradually weeds the stupid genes out of the gene pool, ensuring that future generations will will be incrementally smarter.
It is in fact the way humans got to be as smart as we are in the first place. In ancient times, stupid people did stupid things and got eaten by a cave bear. Smart people knew to be more cautious and so, they survived in greater numbers. Then, they passed their smart genes down to the next generation... where as many of the stupid people got killed before they had the chance to reproduce. Over time, we gradually became smarter and smarter. Baby steps. This is really the way that evolution works.
Evolution is imposed from the outside... it has absolutely nothing to do with whatever a particular species might want. When your environment changes, you either change along with it, or else you perish. How you feel about it is immaterial. Whether you believe in it or not is immaterial. It keeps happening, regardless. "Evolution is a fact, not a theory... it REALLY happened." That's a quote from Carl Sagan.
That same mechanism of natural selection is happening again. The stupid, rabid, tribal little Trump maniacs are refusing to social distance. They're refusing to wear masks. They're refusing to get vaccinated. They're obviously too stupid to fully understand and appreciate the long-term consequences of their behavior... and so, they are now dying in greater numbers than the smart people are. Almost five times greater.
WTG, evolution! More proof that Darwin was right. ;D
Quote from: Tessera on September 29, 2021, 10:44:04 AM
NATURAL SELECTION AT WORK
(http://www.tessmage.com/images/misc/2021_covid_deaths_by_party.jpg)
Please take a minute to look closely at that graph.
The data on that graph shows that the people who support Trump the most are also the people who are DYING the most, from the Delta variant of COVID-19.
See, this is how natural selection works. Stupid people will do stupid things and die. Smart people will do smart things and preferentially survive. This is the way nature gradually weeds the stupid genes out of the gene pool, ensuring that future generations will will be incrementally smarter.
It is in fact the way humans got to be as smart as we are in the first place. In ancient times, stupid people did stupid things and got eaten by a cave bear. Smart people knew to be more cautious and so, they survived in greater numbers. Then, they passed their smart genes down to the next generation... where as many of the stupid people got killed before they had the chance to reproduce. Over time, we gradually became smarter and smarter. Baby steps. This is really the way that evolution works.
Evolution is imposed from the outside... it has absolutely nothing to do with whatever a particular species might want. When your environment changes, you either change along with it, or else you perish. How you feel about it is immaterial. Whether you believe in it or not is immaterial. It keeps happening, regardless. "Evolution is a fact, not a theory... it REALLY happened." That's a quote from Carl Sagan.
That same mechanism of natural selection is happening again. The stupid, rabid, tribal little Trump maniacs are refusing to social distance. They're refusing to wear masks. They're refusing to get vaccinated. They're obviously too stupid to fully understand and appreciate the long-term consequences of their behavior... and so, they are now dying in greater numbers than the smart people are. Almost five times greater.
WTG, evolution! More proof that Darwin was right. ;D
It's basically a cult like Heaven's Gate or Jonestown so their no way Trump mania would end well.
Quote from: Blankspace on September 29, 2021, 05:44:44 PM
It's basically a cult like Heaven's Gate or Jonestown so their no way Trump mania would end well.
I've given up on Republicans. I gave up on them a long time ago. Their primitive, tribal mentality has totally overridden their capacity for rationality and critical thinking. They proceed from a position of hatred and fear... and frightened animals are almost impossible to reason with. They believe that the world is leaving them behind. They believe that their way of life... even their very existence... is somehow threatened. They are, in effect, fighting the future... and that's a losing battle.
Telling them that something is good for them falls upon deaf ears, because anything we liberals tell them is viewed with suspicion... as if our attempts to help them are really just some kind of sinister trick. You can only bash your head against their brick wall for so long, before you realize that the only thing you are accomplishing is giving yourself a headache.
So at this stage of my life, all I want is to see them perish. Before they have the opportunity to drag the rest of us down with them. With Trump, they almost did.
If any of that sounds cruel or insensitive, then I apologize... but after 50 years of Republican madness, I've become completely fed up with them.
(http://www.tessmage.com/images/misc/patriot_ashli_babbitt.jpg)
Today would have been her birthday.
This is the price of supporting a maniac like Trump.
How comes it looks like there's a little man with a top hat in the foreground?
Quote from: Will Never on October 12, 2021, 04:02:12 PM
How comes it looks like there's a little man with a top hat in the foreground?
I dunno. A shadow maybe?
Bloodstains?
Maybe it's the ghost of Abraham Lincoln, slowly shaking his dead in disbelief.
It looks more like a cast shadow than anything. As for what's casting the shadow, I have no guesses.
The Lincoln ghost explanation is fine too.
Does this look like a baby to you?
(http://www.tessmage.com/images/misc/human_embryo_6_weeks.jpg)
According to the insane Texas anti-abortion law, what you see in the photo above is a "baby."
Looks more like a tadpole to me. It even has a tail. What it doesn't have is anything close to a functioning brain.
As a matter of fact, if we were to look at photos of 6-week embryos, from any number of other mammalian species,
then they would look almost indistinguishable from the above embryo. A cow embryo... a monkey embryo... a dog...
Recently, right-wing loonie Charlie Kirk was shown a photo of a 6-week old dolphin embryo, by one of his guests.
The guest asked Charlie "Does that look like a human being to you?" To which Charlie answered "Absolutely 100%
it does, yes." When informed that it was actually a dolphin embryo, Charlie sat there speechless for several moments.
Point made. Embryos are not people. And before someone comes back at me with "But it's a POTENTIAL person,"
then I'll just respond with "So is every single sperm cell. So stop jerking off, baby killer."
In fact, continuing with that "logic," every time you cum in your wife's mouth and she swallows, she just ate a bunch
of potential babies. But isn't that what the right-wingers accuse the Democrats of doing? Eating babies?
No more blowjobs for you, Charlie Kirk. ::)
Agreed. Another thing that conservatives don't care to think about is that women do not enjoy getting abortions. They almost always view it as something unfortunate that they must do out of necessity. But these guys don't care about fixing any economic or social problems that lead to more abortions, they just want to make something illegal and pat themselves on the back.
A big, beautiful wall...
(http://www.tessmage.com/images/misc/border_wall_useless_2021.jpg)
The above photo shows us just how effective Trump's wall is at preventing unauthorized border crossings.
Wall, meet ladder. Wall, meet tunnel. Wall, meet $12.99 hacksaw from Home Depot.
Wall, meet human primates who are really good at climbing things. Totally useless.
Our tax dollars have accomplished nothing, other than to build an oppressive symbol of xenophobia and isolationism.
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: "Mr. Biden... Tear. Down. This. Wall."
NYT:
MAGA freak and fervent Trumpist Brett Favre repays $600,000 he illegally received in a Mississippi welfare fraud case, and he still has $228,000 in interest to pay back. (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/us/brett-favre-mississippi-welfare.html) He received the funds as speaking fees for appearances he never made, and was "compensated" with federal anti-poverty funds that were intended to help the needy. Reading that story might make people angry. Rightly so.
(https://i.imgur.com/pvuMuIi.png)
Rob a convenience store and go to jail for years on end, but rob the people of hundreds of thousands of dollars.... and you just pay interest.
What a country we live in. :o
Alex Jones says Trump is either ignorant or 'one of the most evil men who ever lived' in Christmas Day messagehttps://news.yahoo.com/alex-jones-says-trump-either-173308863.html
QuoteConspiracy theorist Alex Jones issued a "warning" to former President Donald Trump, calling him either "ignorant" or "evil" for encouraging people to take the coronavirus vaccine.
Candace Owens suggests Trump only touted vaccines because he's too old to know how to find alternative sources online
https://news.yahoo.com/candace-owens-suggests-trump-only-100629586.html
QuoteTrump told Candace Owens in an interview last week that vaccines protect people and won't kill anyone.
In response, Owens, who is anti-vax, told Instagram followers it was because Trump is "old."
His generation doesn't try to find alternative information or "obscure websites" online, she said.
Becuase he is now backing the vaccines, Trumps supports are either turning on him or making excuses for him.
Lindsey Graham
More than anyone else in Congress, Sen. Lindsey Graham reminds me of Renfield, from Dracula.
Here he is, side-by-side with classic character actor Dwight Frye... who for my money gave the
very best screen portrayal of the Renfield character:
(http://www.tessmage.com/images/freaks/Graham_and_Renfield.jpg)
Are any of you familiar with the character? In the story, Renfield is captured by Dracula and
turned into a slimy, boot-licking, obedient slave. In the game VTMB, we call them "ghouls."
That's what Lindsey Graham has devolved into: Donald Trump's ghoul. Such a revolting person.
I seem to have triggered the right-wing trolls again on YouTube...
(http://www.tessmage.com/images/misc/YT_Carlson_comment_2022.jpg)
I posted that yesterday. It already has almost 850 "thumbs up" votes and 169 replies... in just 24 hours.
It isn't hard to understand why. The trolls have been crowing for a year about how Jan 6th "wasn't an insurrection, because nobody has been charged with sedition."
Tucker Carlson has been saying the same thing on his Fox News show.
Well, the DOJ has now formally charged 20 or so members of the Oath Keepers with seditious conspiracy. At which point the trolls have all lost their fucking minds. ::)
You have a good thread going there.
Imagine if Trump actually tries to run again in 2024.
Just imagine the campaign ads from his opponent. Videos of explosions in Ukraine, photos of dead and mutilated Ukrainian children,
while we hear a voice-over of Trump saying "This is genius. Oh, that's wonderful." Trump praising Vladimir Putin.
Then toss in those videos of Trump kissing Putin's ass, at that Helsinki summit a few years ago.
He doesn't have a prayer.
Quote from: Tessera on March 09, 2022, 09:44:41 PM
Imagine if Trump actually tries to run again in 2024.
Just imagine the campaign ads from his opponent. Videos of explosions in Ukraine, photos of dead and mutilated Ukrainian children,
while we hear a voice-over of Trump saying "This is genius. Oh, that's wonderful." Trump praising Vladimir Putin.
Then toss in those videos of Trump kissing Putin's ass, at that Helsinki summit a few years ago.
He doesn't have a prayer.
Yep, also some people on the right have been distancing themselves away from him.
Someone more chrismatic and less buffonish than Trump will run. The policies will be the same or worse now that violence and hate agaist non-trumpers has been normalized.
Ultimately, this won't end until the entire Republican party has been completely and permanently destroyed. There's a lot of wealth and power at stake and they absolutely will not stop until they're dead. They will never have an epiphany, so everyone needs to just give up on that idea.
Pretending that things are otherwise is to be in complete denial about basic human nature. Humans are primates. Primates are notoriously greedy. We're genetically predisposed to jump and leap and grab at shiny things. Nevermind whether or not that shiny thing is actually useful... we just want it. Hey, none of the other monkeys has a shiny thing. I'll be special! I gotta have that shiny thing, dammit! I don't care who I gotta step on to get it. MY SHINY THING!!! MY SHINY THING!!!
That's the human nature I'm referring to. It's so deeply ingrained into some people that it's almost impossible to get rid of it.
QuoteThey will never have an epiphany
I agree with that.
OKAY, TRUMP SUPPORTERS... LET'S PLAY A LITTLE GAME
It's a game that all you notoriously hate with a passion, because it always destroys your ridiculously deluded narrative. It's a little game called "Actual Facts and Figures." Here's how it works: we take one of Trump's ridiculous claims about himself and then, we look at ACTUAL data collected by ACTUAL statistics in the REAL world. You can fact-check these statistics anytime you want. Indeed, I want you to fact check. Do it.
Are you ready? Then let's begin.
Ever since he started campaigning in 2016, and right through his entire presidency, Trump kept boasting that he was "the jobs president." Insisting that he, and only he, could create enough jobs to get everyone back to work and living better lives. So let's take a look at Trump's actual record, in comparison to other recent presidents...
(http://www.tessmage.com/images/misc/job_growth_under_biden.jpg)
Well, whattya know... of the six presidents on that list, the only one with a net LOSS of jobs is Donald Trump. You may also notice that all of the lowest numbers on that chart belong to Republican presidents in general.
The one with the biggest gain, by far, is Joe Biden. Now before anyone accuses me of being a Biden cheerleader, you might read all of my other posts first. I have an established history of calling Joe Biden what he is: a doddering old conservative, masquerading as a Democrat. But hey... I won't lie about him. The man has actually surpassed all previous presidents, when it comes to job growth. Facts are facts.
Of course, I know what some of you will say. "It wasn't Trump's fault! It's all because of the COVID pandemic!" Uh huh. Sure. Let me get my violin.
First of all, Trump ignored COVID for months, doing little or nothing about it until his constituents started screaming at him. Why wouldn't they be screaming? They were dying by the thousands, while Trump ranted about drinking bleach, shoving UV lights up your ass, and swallowing some ineffective horse de-wormer drug named Ivermectin. If Trump had been more responsible and if he had acted sooner, COVID would have been far less devastating than it has been.
Furthermore, monthly job growth under Trump was lower than those other five presidents BEFORE the COVID plague had even hit us. How do you explain that, Trump-humpers?
But it goes even deeper than Trump. He's just a symptom -- not the cause. Trump thinks that he's been using the Republican party for his own gain, when in fact, it's been the other way around.
The assumption that the Republicans are "the party of the economy" has ALWAYS been a myth. Need more proof? We can go all the way back almost a hundred years on this one. The Great Depression happened under a REPUBLICAN president... Herbert Hoover. And then FDR came in and fixed it. FDR was so popular afterward that he was re-elected to three more consecutive terms.
Now let's move forward a few decades. The massive inflation in the early 70's, along with the Arab oil embargo and skyrocketing gas prices, happened under REPUBLICAN presidents... Nixon and Ford. And then the Democrats came in and fixed it.
Now jump ahead again to the late 80's. I'm talking about Black Monday, a massive collapse of the stock market that also crippled many banks and small businesses. That massive collapse happened under a REPUBLICAN president... George H.W. Bush. And then, the Democrats came in and fixed it, actually leaving us with a budget SURPLUS by the time Clinton left office.
Let's jump again, to 2007. We had another monstrous collapse, that resulted in the so-called "Great Recession." This also resulted in a massive collapse in the real estate market. That's how I bought my house so cheap: houses that had been selling for a half-million dollars in 2005 were now selling for less than a third of their original value. People all over America lost their shirts. That collapse happened under a REPUBLICAN president... George W. "Dubya" Bush. And then, the Democrats came in and fixed it. By the time Obama left office, we were in much better financial shape.
So as you can see, the pattern has been the same, for nearly 100 years: the greedy and amoral Republicans trash the economy and then, the Democrats come in and fix it. And yet somehow, for reasons I fail to fully understand, the Republicans keep pushing themselves as "the party of the economy," even though they have an abysmal record of repeatedly DESTROYING the economy.
All of the richest states in America are BLUE states. All of the poorest states in America are RED states. This too is a fact. Look it up, if you don't believe me. The majority of welfare and food stamps are spent on white people living in red states. Not on immigrants living in blue states, or on black people living in urban areas, or any of that other nonsense. And do you know who actually pays for all of that red state welfare? The rich blue states do. So while you inbred goobers in Arkansas grumble about how rotten you think California is, just remember that California is literally putting food on your tables... you fucking brainwashed robots.
So is this the way you're "owning the libs?" By running your own states into the ground? By electing psychotic right-wing parasites, who feed upon you like leeches? I dunno, goobers... it doesn't seem like a good plan to me but hey, knock yersleves out. Enjoy your life in the trailer park. You can always eat the dog, when you run out of food. Or your own young.
This concludes today's little game of "Actual Facts and Figures." I hope you've enjoyed it. 8)
Tessera Attacks MAGA Religious Nut
From YouTube today. Self explanatory...
(http://www.tessmage.com/images/misc/Tessera_attacks_MAGA_godbot.jpg)
Who Exactly Are the "MAGA People?"
What sort of person becomes a MAGA cultist and continues to support Trump, even after he's been completely defeated? After he's been proven to be an unstable psycho, a pathological liar and a career criminal? Well in my opinion, it isn't really about Trump at all. He's just their figurehead. Their locus point. The flamboyant loudmouth that they happened to gravitate toward. They've objectified him.
But it could have been anybody, really.
These are people who have always been on the fringe. We've all known people like that. They're the geeks, the outcasts, the nerds, the introverts, the wimps, the neurotics, etc., that have spent their entire lives feeling shunned and disaffected. Most of them were no doubt picked on when they were young. Made to feel unwanted. Made to feel victimized and weak. Today, they gather together in herds (rallies), so that they can surround themselves with others of their own kind.
And then, they convince themselves that they represent some kind of silent majority (they don't), and proceed to engage in group-think. Just like any other cult, they want to feel important and relevant. They long for power... any kind of power.
All of them are lifelong losers, who want to feel like winners. Hillary Clinton's description of them as "deplorables" doesn't even scratch the surface with these clowns. They really are beyond pathetic.
Lauren Boebert's RAP SHEET
Amazing what you can find, when you take a few minutes to search through some public records. The image below shows a list of different crimes that Lauren Boebert has been charged with and, in some cases, arrested for in the past. So much for the "party of law and order," eh?
(http://www.tessmage.com/images/misc/Lauren_Boebert_rap_sheet.jpg)
Attacking Taylor Swift
So lately, the MAGA monkeys have taken to launching attacks against pop star Taylor Swift. Now, I'm an old dude, so I'll admit that I don't know much about Ms. Swift. So I decided to investigate.
As it turns out, she's actually a talented singer, she's gorgeous, and she seems to be left-of-center politically. She's also encouraging all of her fans to get registered and vote next year. All good stuff.
Well then, OF COURSE the MAGA zombies are attacking her. If every single young person votes next year, Trump and the rest of the MAGA clowns are guaranteed to be annihilated in the election.
I saw a clip from some podcast, where three or four MAGA dipshits were saying that Taylor Swift is "ugly," and "she looks like a teenage boy." So I investigated further, to see if those assertions had any merit...
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50422307137_45c4a62fe5_z.jpg)
(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/54/ef/13/54ef1322368ca57f4a60b9c9a06dbf05.jpg)
(https://townsquare.media/site/252/files/2023/06/attachment-taylor-swift-errors-tour.jpg?w=980&q=75)
Whoa...
Okay folks... if that's a teenage boy, then I'm about to turn gay. Because I'm seeing a major babe in those photos.
As always, the MAGA incels are pathetically transparent and totally full of shit. That chick is a knockout. I hope she inspires her fans to get out and vote by the millions next year. :D
QuoteI saw a clip from some podcast, where three or four MAGA dipshits were saying that Taylor Swift is "ugly," and "she looks like a teenage boy." So I investigated further, to see if those assertions had any merit...
As always, the MAGA incels are pathetically transparent and totally full of shit. That chick is a knockout. I hope she inspires her fans to get out and vote by the millions next year. :D
A lot of internet "podcasts" tend to be full of bullshit and incels can go fuck themselves.
Hey look... it's Kimberly Guilfoyle!
(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/91/f3/1d/91f31dfb7100ab3f166a006f5bad4556.jpg)
LMAO
Quote from: Tessera on December 20, 2023, 11:21:44 AM
Hey look... it's Kimberly Guilfoyle!
(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/91/f3/1d/91f31dfb7100ab3f166a006f5bad4556.jpg)
LMAO
LOL -- she's a dead ringer.
Quote from: Will Never on December 21, 2023, 09:24:08 AM
LOL -- she's a dead ringer.
Extra points if you can identify the woman in that photo. ;D
A little bit of internet research indicates the woman is one Maila Nurmi, playing a character known as "Vampira", a predecessor to horror hostesses such as Elvira. 8)
Quote from: Cylnar on December 25, 2023, 11:40:10 PM
A little bit of internet research indicates the woman is one Maila Nurmi, playing a character known as "Vampira", a predecessor to horror hostesses such as Elvira. 8)
Give that man a cigar. It is in fact Vampira (Maila Nurmi). 8)
As I recall, she tried to sue Elvira (Cassandra Petersen) back in the 80's or the 90's, but I don't think she won that lawsuit.