It's because their allegiance isn't based on thought. It's religion. Something based on thought and reason can be swayed by argument, but religion can't.
Think of people you know that are True Believers. Absolutely nothing you say will cause them to lose their faith. No proof, no stories, no pleading. Something in them has to change fundamentally or otherwise it's no use.
Donald Trump Jr. was told in an email that material damaging to Hillary Clinton was part of a Russian government effort to aid his father
WASHINGTON — Before arranging a meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Jr. was informed in an email that the material was part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy, according to three people with knowledge of the email.
The email to the younger Mr. Trump was sent by Rob Goldstone, a publicist and former British tabloid reporter who helped broker the June 2016 meeting. In a statement on Sunday, Mr. Trump acknowledged that he was interested in receiving damaging information about Mrs. Clinton, but gave no indication that he thought the lawyer might have been a Kremlin proxy.
Mr. Goldstone’s message, as described to The New York Times by the three people, indicates that the Russian government was the source of the potentially damaging information. It does not elaborate on the wider effort by Moscow to help the Trump campaign. There is no evidence to suggest that the promised damaging information was related to Russian government computer hacking that led to the release of thousands of Democratic National Committee emails.
I watched that Australian commentary last night and disagreed with the reporter's assessment that Trump represents the end of American dominant rule in international affairs. That goes too far: Russia cannot take over the role that America's played, and China's influence is likely going to be mostly limited to Asia.
There's no need for someone else to become dominant in the same way. In the context of the U.S.' decline (which didn't start with Trump and his cronies) it is often seen as moving from a unipolar (sole superpower) to a multi-polar world with several powerful players. However, the traditional projection of power doesn't (and can't) work as well as it did in the past.
Trump's crude ideology (as witnessed in Poland) and attitude discards most chances of using "soft power" (at least with traditional allies, a.k.a. liberal democracies). The obvious dominance that will remain is in terms of out-sized military spending and possible threats from using that big stick, but the efficacy there has obviously been wanting and those other centres of power aren't as easy cowed.
China has been projected to eclipse the US economically not too far in the future. There's no indication that the U.S. is willing (or able) to invest economically in the same way as China can (esp. in a climate of government cuts). Domestically it can't enact change/treat people in the same that an authoritarian government can. China has been heavily involved in Africa, and is making trade agreements in other places (aside from investments).
Both China and Russia have plenty of past experience with the West (and their belligerence), and pretty much know what to expect (at the very least being consistently painted as enemies).
I watched that Australian commentary last night and disagreed with the reporter's assessment that Trump represents the end of American dominant rule in international affairs. That goes too far: Russia cannot take over the role that America's played, and China's influence is likely going to be mostly limited to Asia.
In a way, it's heartening that the G20 countries are going to try to take up the slack caused by Trump's denial of global warming. We'll see how far their resolve goes and how long it lasts. Trump's isolation at the G20 summit also parallels his growing isolation in Washington: the GOP is trying to get things done without Trump because he is uninformed and uninvolved when it comes to proposed legislation. Trump is not rallying Representatives and Senators to vote for bills and he's not helping the process of finding areas of compromise.
As far as I can see, the Republicans are fatally divided when it comes to healthcare "reform", and a heavily involved Trump wouldn't change that. However, Mitch McConnell said something shocking the other day:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday that if his party fails to muster 50 votes for its plan to rewrite the Affordable Care Act, it will have no choice but to draft a more modest bill with Democrats to support the law’s existing insurance markets.
The remarks, made at a Rotary Club lunch in Glasgow, Ky., represent a significant shift for the veteran legislator. While he had raised the idea last week that Republicans may have to turn to Democrats if they cannot pass their own bill, his words mark the first time he has explicitly raised the prospect of shoring up the ACA.
“If my side is unable to agree on an adequate replacement, then some kind of action with regard to the private health insurance market must occur,” McConnell said. “No action is not an alternative. We’ve got the insurance markets imploding all over the country, including in this state.”
I don't expect the GOP to become a responsible, moderate and effective party in the near future but it's possible that Trump is indeed becoming irrelevant at home. A divided GOP coupled with an ineffective and disengaged President likely mean that the party's fortunes in the mid-term elections are grim. A lack of party unity and incompetence at the top, in other words, may cripple the GOP's attempts to effect devastating change.
Well, the reason eccentric ideas/people come to our attention is the media telling us about them and keeping them in our minds.
Trump isn't President because he's a good choice; he's there because the media focused on him, as an anomaly, and so he came to the public's attention. Same with these idiots who have KKK rallies and expect opposition. If we ignore them they won't go away, but their ideas spread slower.
We need to stop giving attention to these train wrecks, these personal stories and dramatics, to get photo ops. Instead, the media needs to focus on the much more boring nuts and bolts of what's happening in our legislature. This will never happen.
Trump provided excellent ratings for the TV news shows and networks knew that all too well. Once they realized Trump was playing them for coverage, a bunch of network heads huddled together and tried to boycott some of Trump's fake press conferences during the campaign.
But campaign coverage abandoned serious discussion of the issues and fact-checking of candidates' statements a long time ago. That's one silver lining about Trump's campaign: the print media got a lot more aggressive about fact-checking and hasn't let up since the election.
You have to grant Trump this, I think: his popularity was not due just to the media's coverage of his spectacle. The media and pollsters consistently underrated and misunderstood his popularity with the working poor as well as the fairly well-to-do who became alienated by social progressivism (gay/transgender equality, Black Lives Matter, etc) and tolerant stances towards illegal immigration. Even if Trump had had a fatal heart attack early in the campaign, those issues would still have resonated with some voters and another Republican (Cruz, perhaps or Scott Walker of Wisconsin) would have leaned towards those voters.
I agree with you that the media isn't likely to focus on the nuts and bolts of our government and the policies it promotes. It's too involved and boring. A lot of citizen participation in politics comes down to how voters relate to politicians as people and symbols of larger issues (civil rights, states rights, government intervention in the economy, etc.). You need to have the personal angle to get voters' attentions.
Maybe in the future the media will place more emphasis on how laws and policies would affect specific individuals. You'd have reality-show politics and coverage, yes, but the attention would be on how (for instance) Mary Struthers, single mom of two, is going to be affected by cuts to Medicaid. The personal angle gets moved from the candidates to the voters.
Hey, I'm for anything that gets people to wake the f%*k up and stop being the sucker for psychopathic charlatans like Trump.
Smallified