NEWS -- Sen Sheldon Whitehouse tells me Dems are likely to investigate revelations about Trump soliciting $1 billion

[NJCher]

42. Only naive fools would believe that

Here we are on a thread discussing one of our most competent representatives and you paint a doomsday scenario that is a paragon of learned helplessness. Do you know what learned helplessness is? It's a term pioneered by Martin Seligman, a psychologist and professor at the University of PA. You really should read up on it because everything you just wrote is an example of it in practice.

I scoff when people say I should be terrified. I'm not about to jump into emotional mode and be "terrified." What the hell good is that going to do? Nope, I'm going to use my common sense and think it through, using the vast amount of reading I've done on the politics of this country over the past 23 years I've been on this board.

Now, using my common sense and looking at your post, my inclination is to tell you that you can never get into someone else's head and ascribe motive, such as you did in your first paragraph. You should have learned that in your first or second year college writing class. Your assuming a motive says more about you than it does trump and the republicans. It says to me you feel powerless.

Now I'd like to look at your points and refer to the facts.

You're saying they're so confident they're going to win that they're out saying crazy shit like give me a billion dollars and I'll trash all the environmental laws we've passed to date. I'll get rid of electric cars. Has it occurred to you that the reason they say stupid crap is that they might be desperate, not confident? Their fearless leader is in court, not campaigning. Meanwhile, Biden and the Democrats have, as of April 2024, accumulated $34,572,441. Republicans filed that they had $16,221,286. (FEC Form 3X)

That's less than half what the Democrats have. Yet according to you, they're going to win.

Where it's being spent is also important. Democratic party money is going for ads, public relations, forming coalitions with unions, etc. Republicans are bailing their guy out by paying his legal bills. Yeah, real effective. No voter wants to see their candidate in court for sleazy behavior like what we saw this week. This precludes spending money strategically. I even read that in Florida they have one person to work on that state. Yes, one person!!

Most ludicrous is your last two sentences. In your scenario they already have the House and the Senate. Well guess what: Their margin in the House is so pitiful their own speaker has to be bailed out by the Democrats.

And I won't even go into who is winning elections, the trend of which is Democratic, not Republican.

Your post makes no logical sense whatsoever, but it speaks to fear real well. Get out of emotional mode and look at the facts. The opposite of "learned helplessness" is self-efficacy. That is what representatives like Sheldon Whitehouse demonstrate. Not only is he confident and good at what he does, he enjoys it. Watch his face when he discusses what he's going to investigate or what actions he's going to take. He smiles and there is a twinkle in his eye. Now that is confidence and self-efficacy.