I don’t have any way to back this statistically but if you were trying to find one stat to explain much of the issues in America today the general trend for Americans to not travel abroad has to be a favourite. Exposure to other cultures is a prerequisite for a global view of the world.

It’s easy to be MAGA when you have never stepped foot outside the US.

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Speaking of Paris and Muslims and back to my daughter and her time in the Paris riots, for those few days adding there she was staying in one of the Muslim suburbs in an air-bnb room with a Moroccan family.

Erdogan is basically Secretary of Defense for the US.

What could go wrong?

As i was reading this, the Wait, Wait intro played, with Peter Sagal taking about Trump... wheels coming off.

He's shutting down the government to smash a deplorable intern while Melania is out of town.

Slow & highly coordinated lol

This ****ing guy

Sweden has a very, very broad definition of rape. That‘s why it‘s an outlier.

A few years back my wife and her gf we’re supposed to travel to Thailand and Vietnam as their gift for finishing residency. Her mother (pretty racist towards Asians tbh) was terrified to the point that she was trying to get me to convince her not to go. I was like “do you not realize how much safer it is for women traveling alone in those countries compared to the one we live in?”

Also I know most people don’t travel like this but seems to me the best places to visit in the US would be the smaller to medium sized cities - Portland, Charleston, Tucson (where I live so I’m biased), Austin and a bunch of others. I feel like they’re a lot more digestible than larger cities and also paint a better cultural picture.

Not necessary. I’d take the under on 5 sentences they speak to each other on an average day.

wish trump's dad used the highly coordinated pull out method

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Go **** yourself Corker. You helped make this ****ing bad, now lay the **** down and lie in it.

Trump won the military vote in spite of insulting a genuine war hero for getting captured and dodging service himself. He won the white woman vote in spite of saying rape is cool. He won the religious vote in spite of being completely non-religious, divorced several times, and having multiple affairs with porn stars, and most likely paying for abortions. He won the anti-immigrant vote in spite of the laughable claim that Mexico would pay for his wall, a claim now proven false for those too stupid to know it would never happen.

It's just hard to see anything he can do or say that will make him lose support among his cult. I try to figure out how he won in the first place, and it's almost impossible.

From June 21, 2017



Shanahan, of course, is a total stooge and "business man" in a government role like all the real winners ala Trump and Rick Snyder.

It's racism.

We said the pledge when I was in school also, but that was a long time ago. I just confirmed that my school age kids do not know the pledge of allegiance and have only a vague understanding of what it is.

Puerto Rico says hello.

Thoughts and prayers are cheap, he hasn't said we're actually helping them yet...

Has travel abroad by Americans decreased? I doubt it, which means it probably isn't the explanation for the rise of Trumpism (although it obviously could have an effect on baseline political views).

In any case, I'm dubious that this is the explanation. Xenophobia is plenty prevalent in Europe, and I assume the average European has traveled to more different countries than the average American.

I think U.S. demographic change and social change are probably better explanations for Trumpism. White Americans, even the really dumb ones, intuitively understand that their structural advantages are likely to decrease over the next few decades, and they don't like it. Those structural advantages were underserved, of course, which is why it is abhorrent to cling to them.

I'm sure many of the coastal/blue areas of the country have a large proportion of people who do travel abroad.

But if you live in a red, insular area where America is the greatest country ever created by God, why would you ever want to go somewhere that's not as good as where you already are?

And those areas tend to be poorer as well so it's a nice consolation prize that if you can't go anywhere else, then you wouldn't want to anyway. Sour grapes and all that.

Y’all are trying too hard. The reason USA is #1 is because anybody, even an idiot tv show host, can rise to the position of most powerful person in the world. That can’t happen in other places.

Further, even before they are elected president they **** on your tv show hosts. There is no tv show host on any station anywhere except the United States that could call Trump a pussy and prompt a government shut down.

US tv show hosts are the most powerful and it’s not close. The delta between number one and two is miles wide (not kilometers).

Too busy stuffing my face with eggs Benedict to google it but I think Americans travel much less than other western countries and, as already pointed out, it’s far less in red states.

This isn't really just a response to you, but the original claim was something like demonstrably the greatest country ever known. Or something like that (I can't be bothered to look back). It's wasn't best place to live.

So while best place to live is one factor, I'm sure whoever is making that statement is taking other factors into account (e.g. military power).

While those countries are likely better to live in for most people, I think anyone making the claim that Denmark (for example) is the greatest country ever known, would get deserved skepticism.

But my curiosity has been satisfied. No need to continue.

Clockwork.