...8 years of Obama, with no real scandals, i.e. very much the kind of President he essentially says we're hungry for because we've never had.

and that support for Trump was essentially a racist response to Obama and his policies.

The Trump supporters that I've met at work simply refuse to believe any evidence against Trump.

They are always hyper-focused on liberals, and seem giddy that Trump bothers the liberals so much.

Maybe Cuomo is right about cynicism explaining the phenomenon, but I'd prefer to see polls that support his assertion. Otherwise, I think it's more about liberal-hatred (the result of years of propaganda).

Liberals or progressives still believe that government is "We the People" as stated in the preamble of the U.S. Constitution while modern Republicans believe that "government is the problem" at least since the days of Reagan.

If you believe that government can only be the problem, that sets the bar for pretty low expectations from your own party, close the government just before Christmas then more power to you and it automatically makes liberals enemies because they believe that government is best suited to alleviate major domestic needs affecting the American People.

This psychological decoupling of the Republicans specifically and our nation's citizens in general to a large degree from their representative government didn't come cheap but has been paid for with tens of billions of dollars over the past almost 40 years by the wealthiest and most powerful entities in our society to better dominate the American People.

'The market or private industry can do everything better than government.'

The corporate media conglomerates have profited from this system, whether it's from Big Pharma, private insurance corporations, the fossil fuel industry, etc. etc.

Actual informative news from the corporate media conglomerates; was relegated to a money making operation and they rode that tiger for all it was worth, today I believe some if not most of them are trying to figure out how to get off.

I believe Cuomo is correct in regards to cynicism but that didn't happen in a vacuum.

Today, Trump is the culmination of Reagan's doctrine combined with decades of commercial paid for advertising with a focus on style at the expense of substance, in 2000 that was Bush; he who waged war based on lies, tomorrow if systemic changes aren't made, I'm afraid the next incarnation will be even worse.

Noam Chomsky has written some interesting books about propaganda and big business in America.

I'm not convinced at all that his preferred socioeconomic system is feasible (which he rarely discusses anyway), but his criticisms of our current system are very sound.

is not why propaganda worked on so many people, but why it didn't work on even more people. How is it we were able to resist it but Trump voters were not?

https://slate.com/technology/2017/11/why-conservatives-are-more-susceptible-to-believing-in-lies.html

Excerpt:

Finding facts and pursuing evidence and trusting science is part of liberal ideology itself. For many conservatives, faith and intuition and trust in revealed truth appear as equally valid sources of truth.

I personally think it boils down to how much an individual is willing to believe what he/she WANTS to believe.

If there's something that I'd like to be true, I question it more because I'm concerned that my desire is clouding my judgment.

Here's just a couple things that I'd LIKE to be true, but I haven't found evidence to support it:
1. There's an after-life when I die.
2. I live in the best country in the world.

They don't care because they expect him to lie for their christofascist fantasy.

Just a riff on Lyin for the Lord.

We showed something better. We did better. We continue to be better. It doesn't matter. This isn't the problem with the fucking "system." It's a problem with the fucking scum who vote for Republicans.

It's FOX NEWS!! It has destroyed this country with it's incessant misinformation campaign and propaganda. Since the birth of Fox News in 1996 our nation has slowly descended into the abyss. Trump is the obvious outcome of it all.

NBC,CBS,ABC and CNN are all afraid to confront the FOX monster. Instead they treat them as a peer,a legitimate news source. If they ever work up the courage to expose Fox for what it is,collectively and seriously,it would turn the tide. I'm starting to doubt it will ever happen in my lifetime.

is to make money. Everything else is secondary. FOX just found a different way to do it.

I've been watching US politics from a distance for decades.

Some of the shyte is unbelievable. Attack ads, rumours on social media meant to diminish the moral fibre of candidates, Fox Talking Heads doing mental gymnastics to try to convince people grass is blue and the sky is green . . .

Why does that actually exist? Well, because it actually works. Unfortunately.

For me, a built in BS meter goes off readily. Any politician or TV station that tries to sell me a specific line that make me feel 'You are not speaking the Truth!' has me actively opposing whatever they are trying to sell me.

Cuomo has a valid point. Voters - some - are so cynical about politics that Trump, who doesn't hide the BS but is instead proud of it - may have appeared as a fresh and viable alternative.

Hopefully enough intelligent people with functional BS meters will be out to vote next time.

Some improvements I'd like to see in a US election campaign:

1. Attack ads not accepted by media. Stop the 'You can't vote for him because he drowned a kitten when he was 5!' type of nonsense.

2. Fact checked positive ads only on media. With fines for TV stations that don't pass fact checking when their Talking Heads speak.

3. A blank ban on all political ads and commentary a week before the election. Including social media.

President Obama on the day following a signed check showing up as evidence of a crime in a House Committee...