Trump Deals with Democrats on the Debt Ceiling

[Ged]

Im pickin that Ann Coulter's book, 'In Trump we Trust' is not selling well at the moment. Poor Ann.

[Hortator]

Im pickin that Ann Coulter's book, 'In Trump we Trust' is not selling well at the moment. Poor Ann.

Her fans are kind of tired of her at this point. Good books in the past, but nobody can keep it up forever.

[edwardmurphy]

Ann Coulter is a genital wart come to life.

[RickD]

Ann Coulter is a genital wart come to life.

That's definitely not called for.

[Stu]

Ann Coulter is a genital wart come to life.

Why?

[Philip]

Thing is, while Coulter is talented at spotting political and other hypocrisies, she's a hater and very divisive. She thrives on making nasty comments to get a rise out of people and on making outrageous statements. She is very much like Patrick Buchanan. She doesn't just disagree with the politics of those more liberal than she is (and I include moderate Republicans in that), she totally hates them! And so people like her and Buchanan constantly stir the pot with their venomous output. Rather than cite positives or encourage change in people's problematic views, where possible, with those of other political viewpoints, or see reasonable cooperation as a good goal, they demonize them - wanting to destroy or bring ruin to their opponents. In this way, their negative impact is little different than those on the far left, with much the same destructive results! With such people, their attitude is always, "If we just got rid of all of these or those people, our country could be so much better." But that's such a delusional fantasy, not to mention an evil way of looking at other human beings. And Coulter briefly bought into some personal Trump fantasy that he would humiliate and ruin the grip of liberals on Washington. As this has not happened, she's turned evermore dark and bitter.

Just because I detest someone's politics, doesn't mean it's right to also hate them, or just deliberately piss them off. People buying into the poison of divisive people like Coulter are how we end up with far right and far left / extremely divisive candidates - people who think they can march into Washington and say, "It's my way or the highway." All they do is stir up trouble, anger and hate - to the point that even when they DO have positive, good ideas, all those they've demonized with hateful language won't even begin to listen, as all they can see is a "hater who we can't trust anything the person says." Another key common trait of the far right and the far left, is they thrive on pushing buttons and deep emotions - they don't desire mature, reflective thought and contemplation, no, they want people to melt down with emotional rage, to the point that they will throw common decency away - as if that's for chumps.

ALL great leaders are consensus builders and are persuasive and reasonable in how they talk to those with differing views. Yes, they are tough and will stand up to people whenever it's needed. But they don't just throw gas on fires, or try to win at all costs - because they know, in the end, such tactics are doomed to failure. It's why Reagan was found likeable by a lot of liberals - even when they disagreed with him. Most of them personally liked him, as they thought he truly cared and meant well. Course, there were those on the extreme left and right who hated even him.

[edwardmurphy]

Phil summed her up perfectly. But if you prefer, I can just call her a polemicist. The definition is the same.

[Hortator]

I would argue polemics isn't always bad. Many people were seen as rabble-rousers in their day, but ended up being cherished names, like Noam Chomsky and George Orwell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polemic

[edwardmurphy]

Perhaps the issue is that now they all have cable TV shows, blogs, and book deals.

[Hortator]

The internet was a mistake. The closer we get, the more we want to harm each other.

[edwardmurphy]

The internet was a mistake. The closer we get, the more we want to harm each other.

I wouldn't go that far - there are tremendous benefits to connectivity - but it's definitely got some serious downsides.

Personally, I think the biggest problem is anonymity. I think civility would be closer to the rule than the exception if everything we said came with our name, photo, and city of residence attached. There should be consequences for shouting out whatever hateful nonsense pops into your head.

And to be clear, I'm talking primarily about social and professional consequences. If spouting racist or anti-Semitic slogans online was the social and professional equivalent of screaming them in front of you local grocery store we'd see a lot less of it.