Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 06/06/25

JD Vance was the last politician to meet the Pope ..

As a half-yank, I can vouch that we are indeed the dumbest, most insular people on the planet. We are cultureless, arrogant and obsessed with personal status and wealth from our earliest years. We are ridiculously racist and have zero consideration for those weakest in society.

Freedom? We swear the rest of the world are in chains while plenty of our own work three jobs just to try to cover rent. Get sick, you're f*cked. We have no concept of what Freedom means, only the propaganda drip-fed into us from birth. All those ridiculous school mornings that begin with a pledge to a bloody flag in the corner of a room. Ridiculous.

Kaepernick highlighted how 'conditional' the idea of freedom is. Absolutely 'conditional'.

Education is at best an afterthought, in most cases ignored. More emphasis placed on having dance moves than being able to critically think. Nonsensical. Cost of education alone is a further barrier to those with brains.

The continual regurgitation of the 'thank you for your service brigade' since 9/11 is nauseating and has further eroded any form of free-thought. Almost as disturing as the rise in scripture reciting half-wits on all platforms of social media.

I wouldn't bring my kids up there if it was the last bloody place on earth. It's a f*cking mess of a country.

They have not got it under control, its just that they have failed to catch as many as previously. And their ham-fisted efforts have caused the US tourist trade to tank. And its just a detail compared with the problems tariffs have caused and are causing, and Trump's determination to be at odds with and insult the rest of the world.

I think it’s inaccurate to deem this 49.8 % as out and out MAGAers. Would there not have a % of them floating voters voters at the time . Eg they ‘ weighed up’ the options presented to them at the time re what Trump was offering, what Harris was offering; some not happy with a woman president, the democrats late arrival with Harris and she not having enough time to ‘make her case’ , etc, etc, And in the end they ‘ reluctantly’ voted for Trump after a lot of ‘hedge scratching’ Probably a lot of this floating voters at the did not think TOO DEEPLY about the consequences of Trumps utterances during his canvassing eg he said that he would be a Dictator for ONLY ONEDAY - also maybe they had a very different idea as to what Trump ment when he said that he would ‘drain the swamp’, . Did they realise that he was going to close down departments, sack so many people- especially from provision of critical services, etc.

IMO a sufficient % of this 49.8% of this ‘MAGA’ voter would be floaters And would float back towards the DEMO side if any kind of a reasonable candidate was put forward

I ment to add that the mid terms will tell us a lot

But by using your own numbers and criteria, the vast majority of the reduction in apprehensions at the border happened under biden.

Its a sad state to be in when you think trump failing again is somehow winning.

I was fascinated by the United States in my forties and fifties.

I managed several visits there and did many tours during the nineties and noughties.

I very much enjoyed all my visits but I'm glad I did them then. I wouldn't even dream of going there now in the present climate. It feels like an alien country at present.

Do you think those reported "encounters" and aprehensions include cases such as this -

?

According to AZPM’s report, Hermosillo was visiting the Tucson area from Albuquerque, got lost without identification and was arrested by border patrol officials near its headquarters in Nogales. Hermosillo’s girlfriend’s family made numerous calls looking for him before they discovered he was being held at the Florence Correctional Center, a privately run Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) facility. After his arrest, the court docket shows, he was temporarily detained in the custody of the US marshals.

After the family tracked him done, they provided officials with his birth certificate and social security card.

“He did say he was a US citizen, but they didn’t believe him,” Hermosillo’s girlfriend’s aunt told AZPM. “I think they would have kept him. I think they would have, if they would have not got that information yesterday in the court, and gave that to Ice and the border patrol. He probably would have been deported already to Mexico.”

Vance being the last politician to meet the pope calls to mind The Omen movies

How soon before he insists that the next pope is American. By the end of the week of course but I predict by Thursday

I don't need to say so. The figures speak for themselves.

The MAGA way seems to be the "we need a strongman in charge of us" way. Shame that a nation [the US] born of the opposite view and intent should be swallowed up by the style of two other nations critically opposed to the style the US was born to.

Shame that those who talked [during the last Trump impeachment trial] about the US being a nation of laws should mostly have been of the Democratic Party.

It's good that there are public protest marches and events being held in US cities across the nation against Trump, regardless of the varied causes they espouse. One can only wish them well in their venture and hope that Trump is not allowed try a Lafayette Park manoeuvre against the protests. There would be only one outcome to that and that would be bloody.

I wonder if Trump will insist on making the popes funeral about himself. "Nobody loved the pope more than me, I'm actually super Catholic, no one is more Catholic than me, although that would American Catholic, which is the best Catholic, all other Catholics are losers.." etc