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I get the part about dragging it out, but what if he gets re-elected. There really is a chance.

GOP angst grows amid Trump trade war

Republicans are growing more nervous about next year's race for the Senate as President Trump ratchets up a trade war with China that increasingly threatens to cause pain to U.S. farmers.

To be sure, the 2020 elections remain more than a year off, the president is popular in farm country and voters in rural states largely have stuck with Trump through thick and thin as the economy has grown and the jobless rate has fallen.

But GOP senators say few expected the trade war to last as long as it has.

With markets plunging on Monday and China announcing retaliation against U.S. farm exports, fears are growing that the fight could take a bite out of pocketbooks and even pose a threat to GOP senators at the ballot box next year.

"We all want to resolve this as soon as possible," National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Todd Young (Ind.) said Monday in response to a question about the impact of China's actions. "We all want to keep this economy growing faster than we've seen in decades."

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), whose home-state colleague Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) could face a tough race next year, said farmers are likely to take the brunt of punishment from China.

"We're an ag state in Georgia - 21 percent of our GDP [gross domestic product] is agriculture. Ag is where you most selectively can target tariffs to hurt the quickest, so you're vulnerable from that standpoint," he said.

Asked if that could have an impact on the Senate race, Isakson said "anything can have an impact on anything."

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who is up for reelection next year in a state that former President Obama won twice but that Trump carried by nearly 10 points in 2016, said she wants to have a conversation with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue about assistance for farmers.

Trump announced Monday that his administration will make about $15 billion in assistance available to farmers hurt by Chinese tariffs, but the National Farmers Union said that pledge would provide only a "temporary" fix and warned of "permanent damage" from farmers losing a share of the Chinese market.

"Already the corn farmers have called in. They're very worried that they'll be left behind," Ernst said.

GOP senators have backed Trump's hard line with Beijing, echoing Trump's arguments that it will give the U.S. leverage.

"Raising tariffs will hurt both US & China economies + more importantly will hurt US farmers/consumers/businesses Enough is enough China needs to negotiate seriously & quit moving the goalpost Enforceable trade deal needed for certainty," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) tweeted on Monday.

Grassley also predicted that negotiators would soon be back at the bargaining table.

"Everything has suggested that they're still talking," he told reporters.

Ernst said China "needs to come to the table."

What's unclear is whether Beijing is feeling that urgency. The latest talks between China and the United States hit a standstill after Beijing refused to meet U.S. demands and was seen by Trump as backtracking on previous commitments.

Democrats see the growing anxiety in farm country as a chance to make inroads with rural voters.

"I think there is an opportunity. We have actually done some focus groups in farm country," said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. "Farmers were very loyal to Trump and wanted to give him a chance and thought everybody needed to do their fair share, but I think it's getting different now."

Lake said Democrats have a chance to win over rural millennials, a demographic that Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) wooed successfully when he won reelection last year in a rural state that Trump carried by 20 points in 2016.

"Even if we don't do better with the farmers and ranchers themselves, there's a real potential to do better with the small towns that are depending on the farmers and ranchers," Lake added.

Democrats have failed to recruit high-profile stars to run against incumbent GOP senators, including in Colorado, Georgia, Montana and Texas. But other Democratic hopefuls are eager to take advantage of the political environment.

In Georgia, 2018 gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams passed on taking on Perdue. But possible Democratic challengers include former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson; businesswoman Sarah Riggs Amico, a pro-choice evangelical Christian and former Republican; former House candidate Jon Ossoff, who raised more than $20 million for a House special election in 2017; and 2014 Senate Democratic nominee Michelle Nunn.

In Kansas, Democrats feel they have the best chance in years to capture a Senate seat with Sen. Pat Roberts's (R-Kan.) retirement.

Ethan Corson, the executive director of the Kansas Democratic Party, said farmers in his state are losing patience with Trump's trade wars.

"Right now it has dragged on far longer than they anticipated and I think their patience is really being tested," he said. "I think we're really reaching a breaking point in terms of their willingness to support the Republican trade war,"

Democrats captured Kansas's governor's mansion and the 3nd Congressional District in 2018 and feel they have momentum going into 2020.

GOP nervousness about keeping the seat was revealed earlier this year by McConnell's efforts to woo Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a former House member from Kansas, to run for Roberts's seat.

Roberts warned Monday that Trump's trade policies threaten to erode support for Republicans among rural voters.

"Come the summer months, if something doesn't give on this, I think you're going to see more and more - I don't know what to call it - angst," he said. "It's going to be a tough time."

"It will be a campaign issue, of course. There's a lot of political ramifications. People underestimate the rural vote," he added. "It eats at his base. We're the people who brought him home."

Roberts said he can already see farm issues having an impact on the 2020 election, noting that presidential candidates such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have released farm plans.

Senate Democrats are going on the offensive, warning that Trump's tariffs could have a devastating effect on rural areas.

"It obviously is going to have a major impact and I have long advocated for them to go back to the negotiating table," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar

(D-Minn.), a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, who is running for president.

"You can only sustain so much. We already have soybean farmers with their soybeans stacked up," she added. "They got some help from USDA [the Department of Agriculture] but the ones I've talked to, that's not the way they want to run their business. They want to actually sell things."

Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders. It is done slowly, so the victim doesn't realize how much they've been brainwashed. For example, in the movie Gaslight (1944), a man manipulates his wife to the point where she thinks she is losing her mind.

In my book Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People - and Break Free I detail how gaslighters typically use the following techniques:

1. They tell blatant lies.

You know it's an outright lie. Yet they are telling you this lie with a straight face. Why are they so blatant? Because they're setting up a precedent. Once they tell you a huge lie, you're not sure if anything they say is true. Keeping you unsteady and off-kilter is the goal.

2. They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof.

You know they said they would do something; you know you heard it. But they out and out deny it. It makes you start questioning your reality—maybe they never said that thing. And the more they do this, the more you question your reality and start accepting theirs.

3. They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.

They know how important your kids are to you, and they know how important your identity is to you. So those may be one of the first things they attack. If you have kids, they tell you that you should not have had those children. They will tell you'd be a worthy person if only you didn't have a long list of negative traits. They attack the foundation of your being.

4. They wear you down over time.

This is one of the insidious things about gaslighting—it is done gradually, over time. A lie here, a lie there, a snide comment every so often...and then it starts ramping up. Even the brightest, most self-aware people can be sucked into gaslighting—it is that effective. It's the "frog in the frying pan" analogy: The heat is turned up slowly, so the frog never realizes what's happening to it.

5. Their actions do not match their words.

When dealing with a person or entity that gaslights, look at what they are doing rather than what they are saying. What they are saying means nothing; it is just talk. What they are doing is the issue.

6. They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you.

This person or entity that is cutting you down, telling you that you don't have value, is now praising you for something you did. This adds an additional sense of uneasiness. You think, "Well maybe they aren't so bad." Yes, they are. This is a calculated attempt to keep you off-kilter—and again, to question your reality. Also look at what you were praised for; it is probably something that served the gaslighter.

7. They know confusion weakens people.

Gaslighters know that people like having a sense of stability and normalcy. Their goal is to uproot this and make you constantly question everything. And humans' natural tendency is to look to the person or entity that will help you feel more stable—and that happens to be the gaslighter.

8. They project.

They are a drug user or a cheater, yet they are constantly accusing you of that. This is done so often that you start trying to defend yourself, and are distracted from the gaslighter's own behavior.

9. They try to align people against you.

Gaslighters are masters at manipulating and finding the people they know will stand by them no matter what—and they use these people against you. They will make comments such as, "This person knows that you're not right," or "This person knows you're useless too." Keep in mind it does not mean that these people actually said these things. A gaslighter is a constant liar. When the gaslighter uses this tactic it makes you feel like you don't know who to trust or turn to—and that leads you right back to the gaslighter. And that's exactly what they want: Isolation gives them more control.

10. They tell you or others that you are crazy.

This is one of the most effective tools of the gaslighter, because it's dismissive. The gaslighter knows if they question your sanity, people will not believe you when you tell them the gaslighter is abusive or out-of-control. It's a master technique.

11. They tell you everyone else is a liar.

By telling you that everyone else (your family, the media) is a liar, it again makes you question your reality. You've never known someone with the audacity to do this, so they must be telling the truth, right? No. It's a manipulation technique. It makes people turn to the gaslighter for the "correct" information—which isn't correct information at all.

The more you are aware of these techniques, the quicker you can identify them and avoid falling into the gaslighter's trap.

Trump is a sociopath

Rachel Maddow

He wouldn't lie.

Re: coldjoint (Post 6841791)
The fact you don't recognize sociopathic behavior tells me a lot about you.

The fact you don't recognize sociopathic behavior tells me a lot about you.

Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada (R) promised his caucus last week that “there’s nothing else to come out” after a heap of racist and sexist text messages ended the political career of his chief of staff, Cade Cothren.

However, per local station News Channel 5, more texts leaked Monday night showing that Cothren sent Casada a video of women dancing in his apartment.

“R they 21?” Casada asked.

“It only takes 18,” Cothren responded with a winking emoji.

“Lol!!! And true!” Casada said.

Cothren had also sent texts in conversations without Casada that captured his drug use on government property, putting the nail in his political coffin.

And of course, here as elsewhere, a strong resistance to possible conclusions (deemed negative to the individual) is not likely to lead to such study.

These fellows seems like fine examples of upstanding character in a peoples' representative.

AFP news agency
‏Verified account
@AFP
#BREAKING Putin praises "quite objective" Mueller report

Quote:

I get the part about dragging it out, but what if he gets re-elected. There really is a chance.

There is a chance he gets re-elected regardless. He hasn't lost any of his base, and he has fulfilled a lot of his campaign promises as bad as they were.