Trump shifts to PLAN B

Coronavirus infections are expected to peak in the United States this week. As a result, hospitals all over America are reconfiguring to cope with an expected deluge of patients. They may get busier in the next few weeks, but that doesn't mean they're going to be making more money.

Quite the reverse, in fact. Because of the need to shift resources to COVID-19 treatment bays, hospitals have had to close other departments. That means postponing or canceling non-critical, elective surgeries like knee replacements and procedures like colonoscopies, which generate the bulk of revenues for hospitals. So, in many cases, hospitals are losing money. As a result, they're laying off staff.

 

Conservative neoliberal GREED must always be the FIRST RESPONSE to PROTECT those precious PROFITS regardless of the pain and suffering of hardworking Americans.

 

Yes I know exactly what it means. And that lesser men tend to use it in a vain attempt to denigrate those who haven't been led as they have been. It is a common cult tactic. It plays more to the members than it does to outsiders, or even to their targets. It is is just one of those things that Trumpsters have to tell themselves, to make themselves feel all warm and cuddly. That everyone else is inferior. That it is everyone else's fault.

I was reading a book awhile back, about the rise of right wing churches...

It is a line that conservatives, and especially conservative Christians have long been making, that liberals suffer from a brain disease. Which has always been kind of funny, in an ironic kind of way. It was Michael Savage, who first started to use the term, although Charles Krauthammer made it his brand, that liberalism is a mental disease. At first it was alleged that it was a mental disorder that caused liberals to oppose George Bush. Then it was alleged that it was a mental disorder that caused liberals to support Barack Obama. And of çourse it is a mental disorder that causes one to not see the greatness of Dear Leader. How ironic that you accuse others of immaturity.

Anyhow, back to the book on the rise of right wing churches. Since at least the sixties, church attendance, overall, has been dropping. I suppose that it was the Supreme Court, disallowing prayer in public schools, that set it off. Previously there had been social pressure, for one to, at least, show public signs of devotion. Which often involved periodic attendence to a church. To see and be seen. Then the Supreme Court gave permission, to choose differently.

The Walton's was a popular television show throughout the seventies. Even though it regularly depicted the family going through the Sunday church ritual, the father never participated. John Walton always took a walk in the woods, up on the mountain. Got away from it all and relaxed, unwound. John Walton was a good man, even though he never went to church. Nice wholesome family television.

Anyhow, just by natural inclination, it has been mostly left leaning individuals who have stopped going to church. Not all stopped believing, but many stopped seeing the need to belong to a church. The net result has been that the congregation of churches have been becoming more and more conservative and right wing, without the liberal voices to moderate their tendencies. The literature and rhetoric coming from some churches now make it sound as if it would be sacrilegious to vote Democratic or to support "Leftist" ideas.

Anyhow, you can't trademark TDS because The Daily Show has been using it since long before Trump, the president of low expectations, came along.

 

There is a core issue here that defines the gap between people who might be called conservatives and those who fall into liberal, progressive categories.
That issue is responsibility. Conservatives accept that you are responsible for your own life- for the control and regulation of it, for paying your own way, for navigating you own path. This is the core of independence and freedom- it is unlimited opportunity, always coupled with the consequences of your own decisions- because only you control them.

The other side believes that other people, systems, corporations etc are responsible for what happens to them, and that life should adjust to the path they want to take, and be responsible for their dis-satisfaction, their quality of life, and the consequences they bring on themselves by their own decisions. Everything they want depends on taking from somebody else- taking their money, their freedom, their property, their rights- it's endless.

The political names chosen make no difference. Part of our society has a core belief that you are responsible for yourself, because only you can control your choices and conduct.
The other side has a core belief that someone else should make their life work, and somehow believes that what they think, feel and do are thing forced on them by others- so those others are responsible for their feelings and actions. In doing so, they chose to be dependent, because they choose to blame others for what only they can control. They want freedom, without responsibility for their own decisions and the consequences. It is a fatally flawed concept that they can't understand or control- because it's not their fault, they are just "victims".

This is the difference between the mindset of a mature adult, and an immature and spoiled child. It places them in conflict with the natural laws of life that nature has used to allow millions of species to thrive for millions of years. It is self-destructive; something that in wide practice can only result in a flare and then collapse.

The conservative side isn't perfect, it is a work in progress with a very long way to go- but does accept the responsibilities for itself in the process, because doing anything else is to abdicate the power to control your own life and future.

The right believes you hold yourself accountable for what you think, say, do or feel- the left holds others, be it people. society, government, capitalism, the rich, the religious, and basically anything or anyone except themselves accountable. It's not even a cohesive concept of a social system- it's just the rejection of the values that have made everything work so far in this country.
And of course, that is not something Trump produced or is responsible for, it's centuries old and has always had many variations and many promoters. Bernie was preaching it as a teenager and has never quit, never learned.

Trump simply upset the path that this delusion was on, interrupted the progression and progress they thought were taking place- and thus became the focal point of the wrath they feel when they don't get their way. I am sorry to have to compare this mindset to that of the spoiled child- but that is exactly what it mirrors. That child also believes that everything he feels is someone else's fault, for not letting him have his way, not meeting his demands. Nothing new about that. It only exists in adults because flaky parents failed to properly educate them, what used to be know as sending them to the Woodshed.

It's nothing more than chronic bad behavior and rejection of personal responsibility that must always have someone to blame, and Trump the most visible target.