What does the future hold for Donald Trump? - threadbans in OP

Overheal · 23-05-2023 04:34AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120629679#Comment_120629679

Or literally stealing state supplies to make them beg for them back

Overheal · 23-05-2023 04:35AM

Carrol likely to be awarded summary damages on top of what she’s already been awarded previously. Suit filed.

https://www.mediaite.com/news/just-in-e-jean-carroll-suing-trump-again-for-comments-he-made-during-cnn-town-hall/

francois · 23-05-2023 07:30AM

More legal woes

https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1660754248475328515?t=ZxwWeg_-IiL17oBVJECZwg&s=19

Igotadose · 23-05-2023 07:59AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120629887#Comment_120629887

If he's on the ballot, the sheep will vote for him. Matt Taibbi, who has since gone over to suck on the GQP teat, once wrote a column after the 2016 election that's still spot on:

https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2017/01/insane-clown-president-intro-by-matt-taibbi

Boggles · 23-05-2023 08:55AM

Carrol is going to be one wealthy woman.

Flaneur OBrien · 23-05-2023 08:59AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630065#Comment_120630065

He still needs to pay her and she's 79. I'm sure he'll try every appeal delaying tactic to make sure it's years away when she gets paid.

Rawr · 23-05-2023 09:17AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120629499#Comment_120629499

I'm guessing swampgas' point is that it seems off to intentionally find something nice to say about a guy who has done so much potential damage to the democratic process.

I do however have one nice to thing to say about him. I was impressed how he used mostly just Twitter to promote his campaign. Usually you hear about an insane amount of cash used to run adverts for such things, while Trump managed it with just a phone handset and an essentially free social media app. I felt that was clever.

But that's pretty much as far as I'll go, beyond maybe his belated attempts to encourage his "faithful" to actually take the COVID vaccine, which he wanted to claim credit for, but then got wedged in a wierd idiolical dead-zone where some MAGA folk thought he was betraying them by insiting on taking an important medicine. I felt a little bit sorry for him at that point...a *little bit*....until I remember the rest of it.

He can't be fully compared to Hitler or Stalin, he didn't get a chance to go as far as them. Maybe closer to Mussolini or Tito, but nontheless there are things to compare:

Much like the Nazi German, he relied upon driving his people into collecive hysteria with grand rallies.
He delvied into Goebbel's playbook of lying enough until it was the truth.
He fostered a cult of personality around himself that persists to this day.
He refused to condemn actual Neo-Nazies, going as far as stating that there were good people "on both sides".
He encouraged the "othering" of people, infamously starting with people from Muslim states. Who were blanket banned from entering the US for a time.
He encouraged a monsterous program that stole young children from their families at the border without any plan in place to reunite them later. A good few still have not been reunited with their parents (and might never be).
He finished things off with his own attempt to "storm the Reichstag". There was even an attempt to blame it all on "Antifa" (another "other", this time a vague alt-left boogieman).

He didn't attempt a genocide, nor did he encrouch on some kind of Sudentenland invasion to trigger a World War, but the ingredients to undermine & replace the norms of Western Democracy with a dictatorship under his name, were there. This is not a man who respects the freedom of people to *not choose him*. He would gladly crown himself King Trump I of America if he had been allowed to, because this was always about him, and his need to feel important, no matter the cost to others.

Politicians are often slimy, distrustful creatures. But there is at least a pretence with most of them that their role is in service of the people, and that they leave when voted out. Trump never seemed to subscribe to that, and mearely muddied the swamp he claimed he would clear.

Quin_Dub · 23-05-2023 09:47AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120629297#Comment_120629297

The numbers added were less than previous Presidents, but he did add Jobs.

His 1st two years weren't awful economically speaking, no one is saying that - The general positive trend that had been seen for the previous 6/7 years continued but at a slower pace , those are the objective facts.

Every single measure of Economic performance grew at a slower pace under Trump than any other President in the previous 50 years (except GWB), that's just a simple fact, regardless of individual anecdotes. But they did grow.

He kept that growth going not by making policy changes but by rapidly increasing borrowing and by goosing the stock market through his tax cuts that drove massive volumes of stock buy-backs which spiked Stock prices and by extension peoples 401k accounts , but as was warned at the time that is not sustainable and the impact of those tax cuts have come back to bite, hard.

In fact if you look at the monthly figures for the US economy you can clearly see the slow-down had already begun in the back-half of 2020 before Covid became a thing.

If Covid hadn't happened, the economic indicators would likely not have looked good for Trump by the time the Election came around and might have been used to target him in the Election.

As others have said , seeking "positives" from the Trump Presidency is somewhat akin to saying that the weight loss was a positive of a cancer diagnosis.

swampgas · 23-05-2023 09:54AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120629499#Comment_120629499

I think @Rawr nailed it in his response, but to answer slightly differently, I think Trump's personality makes him dangerous. He clearly exhibits the "Dark Triad" set of personality traits: (malignant) narcissism, machiavellianism, and psychopathy. These people can appear confident and strong, which makes them attractive to many, especially to those who can't see past the surface. In my very amateur opinion, anyone who is swayed by Trump or finds him to be a role model is someone who has "fallen under his spell", so to speak, and/or shares some of those same dark triad personality traits with him.

23-05-2023 10:11AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630134#Comment_120630134

the ingredients to undermine & replace the norms of Western Democracy with a dictatorship under his name, were there.

Have you any idea how ridiculous this sounds?

Flaneur OBrien · 23-05-2023 10:12AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630348#Comment_120630348

Do you think he admires people like Kim Jong Un and Erdogan for their fashion sense?

everlast75 · 23-05-2023 10:16AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630348#Comment_120630348

dictatorship - (Def)

"A form of government in which one person or a small group possesses absolute power without effective constitutional limitations"

Does it sound ridiculous now?

23-05-2023 10:21AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630355#Comment_120630355

Admired Kim Jong-Un? Trump couldn't stop insulting "little rocket man", and even insulted his weight - in person. De-escalating tensions between the two countries was a net positive from the Trump Administration.

Erdogan is the leader of a democracy. Not a perfect democracy, but a democracy nonetheless. They just recently held a presidential election.

Quin_Dub · 23-05-2023 10:22AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630348#Comment_120630348

What exactly do you think would have been the outcome if Trump had managed to get Georgia to "find those votes" or if he'd managed to get Pence to refuse to certify to Election or indeed any of the other hair-brained schemes he was attempting?

Do you think that if Trump got himself back into the White House illegally in 2020 that he would have just left everything as is and US politics would have just returned to normal service?

Rawr · 23-05-2023 10:26AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630348#Comment_120630348

I really wish we lived in a world where the ridiculousness of that idea would make it impossible. Alas, I fear it is not. Attempting to disarm it as some kind of silly notion is also doing it service I'm afraid, even if that is not your intention.

Vidulence against those who would take our demoractic freedoms away, is the price of that freedom.

Hungry Burger · 23-05-2023 10:35AM

A precedent has been set in the US now that whoever loses a presidential election can just claim they didn’t and the whole thing was rigged. Expect to see this all the time going forward, both democrat and republican.

Boggles · 23-05-2023 10:35AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630080#Comment_120630080

He can apply for an appeal, doesn't mean he gets one.

The can also file a motion to freeze his assets, including property.

looksee · 23-05-2023 10:39AM

The whole Make America Great Again was very much in line with the ambitions of the Third Reich - looking back on past glory and trying to recreate it regardless of cost. What did the 'Again' refer to in Trump's case? What period was he looking back to? He said himself, the 40s and 50s of his childhood. A child of a wealthy family, wealth was given to him, that is all he remembers. There was prosperity but the price of that prosperity included racial and social inequality which are still not included in the MAGA philosophy. MAGAFM - Make America Great Again For Me would be nearer his intentions.

everlast75 · 23-05-2023 10:49AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630080#Comment_120630080

A lot of the time the appellant must lodge the money in court, or make a partial payment to the plaintiff - that amount being the aspect of the award he/she is not appealing.

23-05-2023 10:53AM

Much like the Nazi German, he relied upon driving his people into collecive hysteria with grand rallies.

Obama had larger rallies, by far.

He delvied into Goebbel's playbook of lying enough until it was the truth.

A politician lying? When did that become new with Trump? And just throwing around Joseph Goebbels to add a faux veneer of fascism is a very weak strategy.

What about the Russia hoax - the lies that continued over and over again until it was regarded as The Truth by opponents of Trump. It turned out Trump was right about that vortex of lies.

So if you want to talk about lying, at least put it in context. And don't randomly introduce Goebbels to make your point seem relevant. It doesn't work.

He fostered a cult of personality around himself that persists to this day.

Then Trump failed, because 90+% of the US public do not unquestioningly praise Donald Trump from dawn till dusk.

Look at North Korea or what happened under Mao Zedong if you want to see what an actual Cult of Personality looks like.

All you're really saying is that he has a hardcore "base" of supporters.

Yet again you take something utterly banal and add layers of propagandised hyperbole to it.

He refused to condemn actual Neo-Nazies, going as far as stating that there were good people "on both sides".

After the whole "fine people on both sides", when Trump was at a press conference 2-days later, he condemned "in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America".

He encouraged the "othering" of people, infamously starting with people from Muslim states. Who were blanket banned from entering the US for a time.

Only you are referring to those countries as "Muslim states". If we had a ban on German migration into the US, you wouldn't call it a ban on a "Christian state".

The countries were initially identified as “countries of concern” under the Obama Administration - and these included restrictions on people entering the US from Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Syria. Was the Obama Administration proto-fascistic in its approach, then?

So there's nothing about a Trump dictatorship about this either.

Had Trump banned the entry of people from Muslim-majority states throughout the entire world, you'd have the ghost of a point.

He encouraged a monsterous program that stole young children from their families at the border without any plan in place to reunite them later. A good few still have not been reunited with their parents (and might never be).

Deterrence strategies matter. Better not to have people coming in the first place if they fear family separation. So let's put that factor on the table.

Second, there may very well be situations in which the lives of children are at danger given the chaotic situation at the border. In these situations, children may need to be protected and later reunited with their families.

In fact, Trump Administration "encouraged" the practice so much that they ended the practice in June 2018.

There's nothing about this that indicates a Trump dictatorship either. This is just thrown in randomly, an argument from emotion.

He finished things off with his own attempt to "storm the Reichstag". There was even an attempt to blame it all on "Antifa" (another "other", this time a vague alt-left boogieman).

He didn't order people to storm the US Capitol.

He soon released a video asking them to go home, as causing violence was against the law and order he was trying to promote as part of its presidency. I don't support the events of January 6, but to call it his version of storming the Reichstag is silly.

So whatever way you cut it, your attempt to frame Trump as wanting to herald in his own dictatorship fails utterly, as is your consistent approach of selectively choosing words and phrases linked to Nazi Germany and then gluing them to anything Trump-related as a means of discrediting the man.

And here's the kicker - even if you were right about half of these points, it still wouldn't follow that Trump was trying to establish some kind of dictatorship.

ancapailldorcha · 23-05-2023 10:54AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630444#Comment_120630444

Both sides.

I don't expect the Democrats to do this at all.

everlast75 · 23-05-2023 10:56AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630348#Comment_120630348

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630369#Comment_120630369

any chance you could address this?

ancapailldorcha · 23-05-2023 11:02AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630134#Comment_120630134

Well said.

What I would say is that he was just too deeply flawed as an individual to do any of this, had there been an opportunity. There is no territory that the USA can just claim the same way several Balkan countries or even Ireland can.

More than that, if you look at any coup in history, you'll see that they only succeed when the perpetrators are skilled, disciplined and experienced and even then a healthy dollop of luck is needed. Ordering a horde of decadent, entitled bigots to storm the seat of government is the relative equivalent of injecting bleach.

I remain firmly convinced that Trump would absolutely take a second term, even if it mean sacrificing millions of lives. He's easily the worst leader the developed world has seen since the middle of the twentieth century.

Quin_Dub · 23-05-2023 11:19AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630515#Comment_120630515

Largely fact free nonsense.

Just to pick out a few -

What about the Russia hoax - the lies that continued over and over again until it was regarded as The Truth by opponents of Trump. It turned out Trump was right about that vortex of lies.

We've already been through this - No , he absolutely categorically has not been "proven right" and the article you link to is utter nonsense and the Durham report doesn't say any of the things it claims, at all.

He didn't order people to storm the US Capitol.

He soon released a video asking them to go home, as causing violence was against the law and order he was trying to promote as part of its presidency. I don't support the events of January 6, but to call it his version of storming the Reichstag is silly.

He didn't "soon release" anything - Hours and hours after it all started , after multiple people begged and pleaded with him to do something , ANYTHING to make it stop, he released a video where he told them he loved them.

Even his fuckwit sons knew it was a terrible thing , but even their begging couldn't get him off his fat arse in front of the TV where he was gleefully watching the riots unfold.

23-05-2023 11:25AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630611#Comment_120630611

Even if what you say is true - and I contest some of what you say - that still wouldn't justify the conclusion that Trump wanted to usher in a dictatorship to end democracy in the United States as we know it.

In other words, it's a non sequitur.

Quin_Dub · 23-05-2023 11:34AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630637#Comment_120630637

Again, I refer you to me earlier question.

What do you think would have happened if Trump had succeeded in illegally overturning the 2020 Election and took office as President?

Do you think that normal service would have been restored and that Trump would have adhered to oversight and laws etc. that he might not agree with , that if the House or Senate voted down something he wanted to do that he would simply accept that decision??

Do you think that it it completely beyond the bounds of all possibility that Trump would have been emboldened by his now proven ability to ignore the law and that he would have made changes to Election laws to ensure that his "side" would always win or even that he might seek to change the law to allow him to remain on as President?

Or that he would simply ignore the law and do as he pleased because he had shown that he could???

Do you believe that a scenario like that is completely and utterly impossible?

Now - It didn't come to pass , because the structures held - He didn't get away with his schemes , but that wasn't because he stepped back , it was because others stepped forward to stop him.

23-05-2023 11:36AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630663#Comment_120630663

What do you think would have happened if Trump had succeeded in illegally overturning the 2020 Election and took office as President?

The US Constitution is too robust to have even allowed this to happen.

There's a reason it didn't happen.

So whilst its tempting to engage in speculation, that's all it is - total speculation. It would never have materialised in reality, nor could it.

MisterAnarchy · 23-05-2023 11:37AM

Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini Ive heard it all now, the delusion and hyperbole has reached peak levels.

Such comparisons are insulting to the millions that were killed or exterminated by these horrific evil regimes.

They killed their political opponents, they sent millions of their own people to die in war, they committed mass genocide.

I think too may people have been watching the film "The Death of Stalin", which may I remind people is a black comedy.

ancapailldorcha · 23-05-2023 11:40AM

Actually, on the subject of saying positive things about Trump, I've got two.

Firstly, he showed us what modern evangelical Christianity is all about: Selfishness and hatred. They couldn't care less about anyone else and now they've stopped pretending to be better than they are.

Secondly, how weak the US constitution is at protecting the liberties of the American people. It's still significantly better than here in the UK but the fact that a former president was able to incite a fascist coup, consequence free, capture the key offices of state that are supposed to hold him to account and arbitrarily strip women of their rights via corrupt supreme court appointments shows it is nothing to admire.

Quin_Dub · 23-05-2023 11:41AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120630665#Comment_120630665

Indeed and the world is thankful for it - But that does not for a moment negate the fact that Trump tried to do it and would have happily done so and would still do it today if given the chance.

The fact that he didn't get to become a dictator because the Constitution held firm and the laws of the US were adhered to is not evidence that he didn't want to become a dictator.

The point being made is that Trump couldn't care less about the US Constitution and has shown that he is perfectly happy to ignore it and any other laws if it gets him what he wants. That is a textbook definition of dictatorship.

What does the future hold for Donald Trump? - threadbans in OP

Comments