California Rick transformed to PDX Rick…. glad Portland let him in as there’s an attitude among Portlandia hipsters against California carpetbaggers. I recognized him from his avatar. I was confusing him with Phil Hoskins for a bit - old age I guess.

My new avatar is the nose of one of my Westies.

I agree that Trump’s popularity comes from everything you say. We thought we lived through the celebration of mediocrity - when many of us thought Milton Berle and Red Skelton appealed to pinheads. Little did we know what would happen when the TV networks discovered there was an audience for cheaply produced so-called reality shows.

I am lucky to have found a retirement facility to live where there are a lot of smart liberals. We discuss the dumbing down of America all the time, not that propaganda doesn’t persuade reasonably intelligent people too. I attempted to persuade an Obama-Hillary-Bernie hater, though intelligent, resident and friend at our coffee shop this morning that most of what she was saying about those three were lies put out by the right wing agit-prop machine. “Hillary wants to raise my taxes by 18%! I’m already paying $4,000 a quarter in estimated taxes." I figure since she probably brings in $500 k a year maybe she should have her taxes raised 18%. But we got down to me saying Hillary never said that, and she insisting Hillary did say it. Of course I couldn’t look it up until now and see that what she must have heard was something about Hillary’s proposal to increase taxes on short term capital gains to encourage investors to hold stock for longer periods.