Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
More proof MAGAts can't read maps.
Has Trump ever changed a tire, gone to a livestock show, taken his kids to the county fair?
- Thread starter Cypress
- Start date
The two guys who went out of their way to complain how stupid this thread is have still visited and re-visited this thread over and over to comment.
Since this thread has over 300 comments, it obviously has stimulated a lot of interest and discussion.
cawacko
Well-known member
I vote every election. The national election is the shiny object we all focus on, and of course it's extremely important, but for many things we would vote on locally plays a bigger role in our day to day lives than what we vote on nationally. So I take very seriously (the many) local (and even statewide) ballot measures we get to vote on. (We all see San Francisco in the national news for some of the challenges we face - the federal gov't isn't the cause of our challenges, it's a local thing.)
As far as for President I voted Libertarian the last two elections. No idea what I'll do this time. I would vote the same no matter where I lived but the reality is in California Harris is going to win the state by 5 million votes. What I do is irrelevant.
I voiced my opinion in the primary by voting for Haley. She's far from a perfect candidate but she was the closest to a Reagan Republican that had a chance to win. I lost. IRL I've had friends tell me to suck it up and vote for Trump. If I were to make a list of policies and positions I would agree more with Trump than Harris. But that's not enough for me to justify voting for him.
My beliefs haven't changed. I still am a strong supporter of free markets, free trade, pro immigration, school choice etc. Because I don't like Trump or don't vote for him doesn't mean I all of a sudden disagree with him on areas we have agreement (lower taxes, conservative leaning judges etc.) But my beliefs aren't tied up in an individual. So just because I didn't vote for Trump doesn't mean I can't passionately discuss a number of issues with people.
Walz is being discussed because picking a vice presidential candidate is the most important decision a presidential nominee makes.
Do I have to remind you of Sarah Palin?
Vance is in the news because he says a lot of weird shit.
Being a college professor is not elitist, and you don't normally see them at the polo field or the country club.
Growing up with a single Mom, and moving around the country for your Mom's job is a biography that is not out of reach for people to relate to.
Being the daughter of an immigrant is also a compelling angle to her story.
Trump's biography, or the perception of it, was made by his reality TV show - which is totally fake.
ThatOwlWoman
Leftist Vermin
Is it free to get an account there, or do you have to pay? Where is their revenue from, advertising? Who would want their company named associated with that mess?
The county fairs in your area must suck.
We have had Van Halen, ZZ Top, and Aerosmith play at our county fair, and I know engineers, scientists, nurses, and doctors who enjoy going to our county fair. Your claim that this thread makes Walz looks like a hick is about the most elitist thing I have seen written here this month.
It was widely reported that Walz was a congressional representative from a rural Minnesota district. Rightwing social media must have been focusing exclusively on tampons.More proof MAGAts can't read maps.
Fair enough and I couldn’t agree more about the down ballot races. IMHO they are actually more important, it’s beginning to look like he Trump campaign is completely melting down. He tried to use the deaths of the marines as a photo op at Arlington and was reprimanded, he is hocking another set of NFT cards, and his train of thought may quickly cause a crash in the polls. My focus is local elections, we just gave the boot to mothers of liberty in the primaries in Florida. I am actively helping a young female candidate for state house who has a very good chance of flipping a red district and focusing on those types of races. These are the foot soldiers. I am not a fan of libertarian ideas, but it’s obvious you put a lot of thought into your choices. Thanks for the thoughtful response.
I know the district well. It has been solidly red for a long time. It is southwest of the Twin cities and I don’t believe it contains any suburban voters. The Kitchen table is a powerful place in Minnesota politics. It’s why Amy Klobuchar does so well and why Paul Wellstone was so popular. They feel/felt like neighbors.
Coastal Rightwing elitists probably consider Minnesota farming communities to be flyover country.
Litmus
Verified User
his anti-globlist polices are best for all Americans long term.
his background is irrelevant to this policy truth.
whats Kamala doing for working people?
price fixing?
how fucking dumb are you?
cawacko
Well-known member
I'm also not going to sit here and tell you I agree with all things Libertarian, because I don't. In my ideal world (while recognizing Libertarians aren't going to win many elections outside a local board seat somewhere) their ideas would seep into the two main parties and manifest themselves that way. So even though people say I'm "throwing my vote away", that's my hope.
This is neither here nor there but how's this for some irony. I'm a lifelong Republican yet I've voted for far more Democrats who have taken office than Republicans. That is of course because in San Francisco (and some races in California) there are no Republicans running. So it's often a choice between what the locals deem a more moderate Dem vs. the progressive. (It's why the one political donation I've made in my life was to Gavin Newsom when he ran for Mayor - he came from a business background and his opponent was a Green Party member. By SF standards Newsom was about as good as I could ask for on paper.)
Litmus
Verified User
the only image of a penis you typically see is similar to a baby corn from the stir fry.
Earlier in the thread, MAGA's claim was that college professors like Kamala's mother in the 1970s made a salary of over one million dollars a year - a seven figure salary.
Steven Hawking was the most famous research physicist in the world, and his annual salary at Cambridge University was around $140K. He got rich writing and selling books.
$140k per year is not rich, wealthy, or mind-boggling. It's a comfortable middle class salary for a family. But you are not going to have butlers, chefs, and chauffers on that salary.
Given where you live, I understand what you mean regarding the idea of 'throwing away your vote', and i can relate. I got fed up with the DFL party in the early 2000s, and I voted for Independence party candidates to help them achieve the five percent oothreshold to maintain matching funds. In the case of Jesse Ventura, he obviously exceeded that number, but the guy that followed him was a more serious canidate, somewhat conservative, but with many ideas I agreed with. He exceeded five percent, the Republican candidate (Tim Pawlenty) won, and the DFL was furious about those people who had voted for Independent candidate. I wrote a letter to the editor of the Star Tribune explaining my reasoning, and the next day I got a call from that candidate thanking me. So no, despite what some people here think, I am not a Democratic drone. I voted for Republicans for Governor a number of times, for US house rep, and for US Senate. So there is no need to explain to me how important it is to sometimes make sure other ideas come into play. My guess is that a lot of the posters here would be surprised at my approach. I don't think that at the end of the day we are that different. Again, thanks.
cawacko
Well-known member
This column was in the SF Chronicle about a week ago and is perfect for this thread. The author, an opinion columnist and cultural critic, travelled to a county fair in Illinois and this is how she reported on it.
Like a lot of folks who live in rural America, my extended family considers the local county fair in their corner of Illinois the biggest event of the summer. All year, they fantasize about the rides, the charcoal-kissed meat skewers and the stall that churns out fried cheese curds, those little molten pebbles enrobed in crisp chambers of light-as-air batter. They circle that curd stand like a menacing school of sharks as they take in the surrounding attractions, stopping over every so often to re-up on greasy, cheesy fuel. In recent years, they’ve even taken to entering the fair’s contests — the Olympics of Boone County. And they’ve since collected plenty of award ribbons for photography, cookies, crafts and giant garden-grown vegetables.
If this all sounds like a wholesome bit of Americana, I once thought so, too.
I used to go to the fair with them when I was a kid, back when I had to beg an adult to buy me yet another butter-slicked cob of roasted corn. Eventually, I grew up, moved to the other side of the country, and started skipping the fair for other summer plans.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion...staurant-service-fees-california-19589069.php
This month, I went back after two decades away to see what I’d been missing.
Everything was basically the same, from the cheese curds to the moaning herds of wooly sheep — except this time, the fair was feeling a little … weird.
Along with corny fair merch and anime ponchos, every, and I mean every T-shirt stall was draped with Trump flags: “I’m voting for the felon,” “F— Biden” and the relatively anodyne, “I’m With Trump.” While browsing the pet supply shop across from the local Republican Party’s stall, I saw GOP staff greeted with cheers and raised fists — echoing Donald Trump’s triumphant pose after the assassination attempt on him — by numerous fairgoers wearing red caps and “Ultra MAGA” shirts. “Boo, Kambala!” yelled a woman, laughing.
In packed queues for roasted corn, I squeezed past parents balancing their children’s plastic lemonade cups in their arms with “Trump/Vance 2024” lawn signs tucked under their armpits. “Nice sign!” one blonde, elementary school-age girl shouted above the din, with her thumbs up at a woman holding one of them.
One of my cousins saw clusters of young men walking the grounds in floral Hawaiian shirts, which have recently become an unfortunate sartorial symbol of the far-right “boogaloo” movement, a militant group that aims to incite a second Civil War. I asked my cousin if he was sure about this because the idea seemed completely absurd. Maybe it’s just a bunch of dorky kids, I thought. But my cousin grew up there and probably went to school with their parents — he was sure.
I was just trying to have a chill time looking at show rabbits. But I was bombarded by right-wing politics.
Recent polls show a decline in support for Donald Trump among many voters after Vice President Kamala Harris’ dramatic emergence as this year’s Democratic presidential nominee. That includes key swing states like North Carolina and Georgia, where Trump, once the favorite to win the election, is now tied with Harris. In swing states, many white working-class voters, who had been a reliable source of support for the GOP, have switched over to Harris. And her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has been working double-time to win swing state votes.
But even in a reliably blue state like Illinois, you wouldn’t know it from walking around the county fairgrounds.
I know it’s just T-shirts. It’s just signs. But it was unnerving all the same to be among so many people so in thrall to the politics of white resentment that it’s seeped into something as casual and family-friendly as a county fair. If MAGA is winning any political contests these days, it’s clearly dominating the merch category.
Living in the Bay Area, it’s easy to forget that pockets of deep-red space exist everywhere in the United States. But I knew better than to be utterly shocked. My family, mostly Democrats or otherwise apolitical, are pragmatic about politics: This is their home. They quietly listen to the daily political rants and ravings about crime, immigrants and “transes” from MAGA colleagues, neighbors and friends, hoping for any opportunity to pivot to the weather. The truth is, if you cut and run in a place like this, you won’t have any friends left.
I’m reminded of how LGBT people, by virtue of merely existing in public, have been accused of “grooming” or indoctrinating young people. Or how merely mentioning actual historical events in schools or workplaces is seen as an intrusion of a radical political agenda. The Bay Area has plenty of political conflict of its own to work out, but I don’t have to worry about being hate-crimed by someone wearing a “Notorious RBG” shirt. People might be politically passionate here, but they can generally be normal about it.
Walk around a place like that Illinois county fair and you’ll see that MAGA comes off like an addiction — an obsession that seems much more emotional than rational. It’s the mean-spirited aspect of America, one that looks upon people like my refugee family as a lesser-than group, even if we might be tolerated individually. It’s heartbreaking to be around, knowing that there’s little logic or data that can dislodge a thorn that’s been absorbed so thoroughly.
On my final visit to the six-day fair, we went to the rodeo, a traditionally gladiatorial extravaganza of bull riding and barrel racing. The event, like many rodeos, began with a prayer, but with a political twist: The emcee asked the audience to pray that “those in the White House” would raise their hands in praise of the Christian God.
By the time the crowd pulled off their hats and launched into a singalong of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” I’d had enough. I stayed seated, head in my hands, and waited for the bulls to come charging out of their pens.
Reach Soleil Ho (they/them): soleil@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @hooleil
I took a trip to Trump country. It was more bleak than I could have imagined
Like a lot of folks who live in rural America, my extended family considers the local county fair in their corner of Illinois the biggest event of the summer. All year, they fantasize about the rides, the charcoal-kissed meat skewers and the stall that churns out fried cheese curds, those little molten pebbles enrobed in crisp chambers of light-as-air batter. They circle that curd stand like a menacing school of sharks as they take in the surrounding attractions, stopping over every so often to re-up on greasy, cheesy fuel. In recent years, they’ve even taken to entering the fair’s contests — the Olympics of Boone County. And they’ve since collected plenty of award ribbons for photography, cookies, crafts and giant garden-grown vegetables.
If this all sounds like a wholesome bit of Americana, I once thought so, too.
I used to go to the fair with them when I was a kid, back when I had to beg an adult to buy me yet another butter-slicked cob of roasted corn. Eventually, I grew up, moved to the other side of the country, and started skipping the fair for other summer plans.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion...staurant-service-fees-california-19589069.php
This month, I went back after two decades away to see what I’d been missing.
Everything was basically the same, from the cheese curds to the moaning herds of wooly sheep — except this time, the fair was feeling a little … weird.
Along with corny fair merch and anime ponchos, every, and I mean every T-shirt stall was draped with Trump flags: “I’m voting for the felon,” “F— Biden” and the relatively anodyne, “I’m With Trump.” While browsing the pet supply shop across from the local Republican Party’s stall, I saw GOP staff greeted with cheers and raised fists — echoing Donald Trump’s triumphant pose after the assassination attempt on him — by numerous fairgoers wearing red caps and “Ultra MAGA” shirts. “Boo, Kambala!” yelled a woman, laughing.
In packed queues for roasted corn, I squeezed past parents balancing their children’s plastic lemonade cups in their arms with “Trump/Vance 2024” lawn signs tucked under their armpits. “Nice sign!” one blonde, elementary school-age girl shouted above the din, with her thumbs up at a woman holding one of them.
One of my cousins saw clusters of young men walking the grounds in floral Hawaiian shirts, which have recently become an unfortunate sartorial symbol of the far-right “boogaloo” movement, a militant group that aims to incite a second Civil War. I asked my cousin if he was sure about this because the idea seemed completely absurd. Maybe it’s just a bunch of dorky kids, I thought. But my cousin grew up there and probably went to school with their parents — he was sure.
I was just trying to have a chill time looking at show rabbits. But I was bombarded by right-wing politics.
Recent polls show a decline in support for Donald Trump among many voters after Vice President Kamala Harris’ dramatic emergence as this year’s Democratic presidential nominee. That includes key swing states like North Carolina and Georgia, where Trump, once the favorite to win the election, is now tied with Harris. In swing states, many white working-class voters, who had been a reliable source of support for the GOP, have switched over to Harris. And her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has been working double-time to win swing state votes.
But even in a reliably blue state like Illinois, you wouldn’t know it from walking around the county fairgrounds.
I know it’s just T-shirts. It’s just signs. But it was unnerving all the same to be among so many people so in thrall to the politics of white resentment that it’s seeped into something as casual and family-friendly as a county fair. If MAGA is winning any political contests these days, it’s clearly dominating the merch category.
Living in the Bay Area, it’s easy to forget that pockets of deep-red space exist everywhere in the United States. But I knew better than to be utterly shocked. My family, mostly Democrats or otherwise apolitical, are pragmatic about politics: This is their home. They quietly listen to the daily political rants and ravings about crime, immigrants and “transes” from MAGA colleagues, neighbors and friends, hoping for any opportunity to pivot to the weather. The truth is, if you cut and run in a place like this, you won’t have any friends left.
I’m reminded of how LGBT people, by virtue of merely existing in public, have been accused of “grooming” or indoctrinating young people. Or how merely mentioning actual historical events in schools or workplaces is seen as an intrusion of a radical political agenda. The Bay Area has plenty of political conflict of its own to work out, but I don’t have to worry about being hate-crimed by someone wearing a “Notorious RBG” shirt. People might be politically passionate here, but they can generally be normal about it.
Walk around a place like that Illinois county fair and you’ll see that MAGA comes off like an addiction — an obsession that seems much more emotional than rational. It’s the mean-spirited aspect of America, one that looks upon people like my refugee family as a lesser-than group, even if we might be tolerated individually. It’s heartbreaking to be around, knowing that there’s little logic or data that can dislodge a thorn that’s been absorbed so thoroughly.
On my final visit to the six-day fair, we went to the rodeo, a traditionally gladiatorial extravaganza of bull riding and barrel racing. The event, like many rodeos, began with a prayer, but with a political twist: The emcee asked the audience to pray that “those in the White House” would raise their hands in praise of the Christian God.
By the time the crowd pulled off their hats and launched into a singalong of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” I’d had enough. I stayed seated, head in my hands, and waited for the bulls to come charging out of their pens.
Reach Soleil Ho (they/them): soleil@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @hooleil
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Agreed. Same for the high priest of atheists, Richard Dawkins. He's a biologist but his money came from selling books to militant atheists such as "The God Delusion".
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
All that "fuck Biden" and "Let's Go Brandon" merch should be selling ten cents on the dollar.
Once again businessmen are going broke investing in Trump. LOL