Dan,
I don’t think it’s fair to claim that the populism that swept Trump into office is anti-immigration. That populism continues to exist in at least half the population of the country—70-80% of the population think that Biden’s progressive direction is the WRONG direction).  The right is not against immigration.  They are against an open border that has no controls on how many or what kind of people are streaming into the country.  It is also propaganda to label such concerns as racist.  Most of the people coming into the country are not well educated and cannot fill needed positions in society.  Where are we going to get those kind of people?  It’s too simplistic to say that we’ll just educate the ones climbing through the fences and fill our own needs from the folks coming across right now.  I work in a clinic that serves lower income people, and many of them have come here recently from another country.  Are we sending their kids to Stanford, NYU, etc?  No. That is not happening.  I met with a very bright 16 year old and his mother this morning whom I found myself rooting for.  They were a pleasure.  But he wants to join the army and become a chef and a bartender. We don’t need a generation of bartenders.  We need people who can help control AI, make our economy work, and contribute to science. It takes a deliberate immigration policy to do that, and we don’t have one.  Any time someone wants to correct the current chaos they get tarred with the racist term, and I’m sick of that. It’s such a lazy way of operating.  You don’t have to even THINK about it anymore.  Just wave the flag of white privilege and try to shame others into silence. 

Phil

On May 17, 2023, at 11:18 AM, Dan Bloom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Peter:

Yes, years before Trump. 


The Tea Party was small potatoes.   MAGA has its roots in American Nativism, anti-immigration, America First,  and other ultra-conservative movements. (The US was damn near not entering WW II because of the America Firsters.  It’s hard to imagine how Britain could have held out without  the US.)

Trump is a narcissistic carnival barker in the PT Barnum tradition.  He has a history of selling worthless products. Steaks. Casinos. Condos. Wines. Clothing brands. University. TV shows.  Wrestling.  He has the talent of not needing to believe in anything.  So what difference does it make to him if something he says is “true.” 

So with Trump, this streak is now in control in a way it hadn’t been in a long, long, time.  It has a charismatic leader.  It has a banner to wave and a red hat to wear.  

Dan



On May 17, 2023, at 1:02 PM, Peter Philippson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi Dan,

I read it differently.  The Tea Party and the MAGA right were fostered by people who used them to do their dirty work while looking clean themselves.  That has been developing for years before Trump arrived on the scene.

Peter

On Wed, 17 May 2023 at 17:49, Dan Bloom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Peter:

Among the too many problems here in the US is how the MAGA right has dominated the right-wing.   It is no longer easy to hear the voices of the "kinder, gentler, conservatives” who didn’t lead their arguments with hate, paranoia, and division.   

We have a crash-and-burn politics.  The MAGA’s seem hell-bent on an armageddon political strategy regarding the national debt, for example, that is playing out as we speak.  

I don’t think it is fair to condemn the entire “right.”   I have a lot of hope for some conservatives and moderates to find the courage to push back against the MAGA cult that’s overtaken their party. 

Dan

On May 17, 2023, at 12:01 PM, Peter Philippson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Personally Phil, I give the right as much respect as they give to the poor, including the poor in need of medical services, minorities, people who have no religion or a different religion...

Sometimes they even persuade those people to support them, usually against another external threat or imagined threat.  They use fear and paranoia as recruiting tools, and deliberately turn people against each other.

It is very clever to give themselves a mantle of victimhood, like their hero Putin complaining about 'Russophobia' while bombing and massacring civilians.  The division you complain of was a deliberate policy of the right, 'the Left hate America', 'Traitors'.  Turning 'woke', which originated in people fighting oppression, into a term of abuse, again of which they are 'victims'.

Peter

On Wed, 17 May 2023 at 16:49, Philip Brownell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dan,
And so here we are again. The divide in our country has only deepened.  And yet, occasionally, there is light shining through a spot in the clouds—as when Jake Tapper admitted that the report did exonerate Trump.  There was no Russian collusion—only dirty tricks paid for by Clinton that got picked up by the FBI and the congress, who had confirmation bias (which is, frankly, if you really understand what confirmation bias is, synonymous in that context to political preference). I think one person put it well, saying that if you really believe Trump to be the devil incarnate, a new-Hitler, someone who would turn our country over to the Russians, then you have to stop him at all cost.  The RIGHT thing to do is to stop him.  Whatever it takes. So, a peaceful transition of power?  There was not one.  It was an active resistance that dominated the attention of the country and usurped the energies of the new administration.

Trump is an obnoxious, narcissistic person (I refrain from diagnosing with a personality disorder because I have not met him).  I don’t like the direction I sense he would take the country with regards to Ukraine (nor DeSantis for that matter). I don’t want him to be president and send us into another four years of drama.  I prefer many of his admin’s policies, and I think we were in better shape as a country during his presidency, but I don’t want him.  But that is not the issue that is presented in the Durham report.  It’s not about Trump, for me, because it is about the way government operates, and by government I include the unelected people who actually do run the government and the enablement of the popular, left leaning and complicit media. 

Dan, I don’t expect you or anyone else here to understand, but it would be nice to experience more of our gestalt community, who have lauded dialogue for so many years, to consider what it’s like for people who lean to the right. The Durham report is not a nothing burger.  An unbiased reading reveals some deep problems.  Or else why would the FBI itself admit that before the report came out it had attempted to correct the mess the resulted in a constant harassment of a sitting president and an entrenched and active resistance?  The report identified an uneven playing field in which people associated with Clinton were not prosecuted and people associated with Trump were.  How much more of an obstruction can you get than scrubbing the servers and smashing the phones with a hammer?

Phil

On May 17, 2023, at 8:02 AM, Dan Bloom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.

______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.


--
Peter (Philippson)
[log in to unmask]
______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.

______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.


--
Peter (Philippson)
[log in to unmask]
______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.

______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.

______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.