Donald Trump Presidency discussion Thread VII (threadbanned users listed in OP)

FrostyJack wrote: »

He is building a wall though, they are finally right, but it is around the White House, more wall going around there today than on the boarder. Once again, imagine if Obama did that, they would have to do cpr on the likes of Laura Ingram and Limbaugh. Seen some on twitter post it is great symbolism for the end of his presidency, ranting from a bunker in the dark surround by a massive wall.

TomOnBoard wrote: »

This comment shows a stunning lack of understanding of how totalitarian regimes grow. Hitler and Stalin didn't start out saying they were going to dominate the world. They favoured exactly what you say Trump favours: ultra nationalism.

Hitler went all in for MAGA type ultra- nationalism as the means of cobbling together a political movement out of a minority of dis-affected, un-involved, economically disadvantaged people in society. This group were offered a leader who espoused their inner beliefs and who found someone else to blame for all their woes and ills. In Hitler's case, the blame started out being directed at 'unter-mensch', lesser valued citizens, such as jews, physically/mentally handicapped. It harnessed tropes directed against intellectuals, learning, free press and established civil authority. It created an inner circle of the most virulent supporters of the new ideology, in many cases elevating those who were willing to use rabid and vicious tactics against other citizens to shut down free speech, free movement and sharing of thoughts and ideas. It fomented internal discord and blamed the result of that discord on its enemies in society, with bogey-men being set up as creators of anarchy as an excuse for hardline policies that ultimately created the totalitarianism of just a few years later. Kristalnacht and the Reichstag fire were caused by thugs from this new movement and blamed on social democrats and bolsheviks. These events were then used by Hitler to excuse the de-legitimisation of Parliament and removal of all political opposition.

So many parallels... For "America First" and "Make America Great Again", see "Deutchland Uber Alles"... For Brown Shirt thugs and forerunners of the Gestapo, see "Proud Boys" and the like. Your attempt at differentiating begins to blur.

Fascism doesn't start out as fascism... It becomes fascism... As leaders grow their influence over their supporters, they become ever more virulent in identifying those who would disagree with them, and take ever more strident steps to shut down opposition. In week one of Trump's Presidency, he would never have tried to do what was done in Lafayette Park this week. He would not try to do this week what he will try to do next week. This is the cancer that is Trump's America. Not something that started out as a crippling tumour, but just a few bad cells that Have grown exponentially and have taken over the body politic and society so as to destroy the healthy parts that previously existed.

Wake Up All Americans before you find yourselves living the words, wrongly attributed to Werner Hertzog, but appropriate to this time:

"Dear America: You are waking up as Germany once did, to the awareness that 1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches."

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

That is just projection and a nice soundbite 'because they knew'.
You could easily argue the opposite Trump supporters voted for Trump 'because they knew'. He aligned with what the electorate wanted.
Similar to how Danny Healey Rae gets slagged off everywhere outside Kerry.
He has made his views perfectly clear and got elected.

I mean Trump may act like an eejit and sound like an eejit a lot of the time but he engages with his electorate. That is what any politician does.

But you cannot deny that there has been a lot of twisting of Trumps statements for example. His comments on the wall and Mexicans. Many in the anti Trump camp say he is anti_Mexican and called them all rapists. He did not. He said that it was not the best and brightest that was getting into America. It was the murderers and rapists.

It is all about projection on who said a comment

StringerBell wrote: »

One of the more interesting things to come out in polls for me lately was the recent one which indicated tRumps falling support from evangelicals, Catholics and from protestants. That's a big one, we could be looking at one of the biggest defeats in history if he were to lose the religious right vote. Imagine the tantrum then! I assume photo op with "a" Bible at St John's was to do with that section of his support.

On Monday when Donald Trump raised overhead a Bible – the Sword of the Spirit, to believers – he unwittingly cleaved his loyal Christian supporters into two camps.

His most ardent evangelical supporters saw it as a blow against evil and described his walk from the White House to St John’s Episcopal church, over ground violently cleared of protesters, as a “Jericho walk”. The Rev Johnnie Moore, president of the Congress of Christian Leaders, described Trump in shepherd-like terms on Twitter: “I will never forget seeing @POTUS @realDonaldTrump slowly & in-total-command walk from the @WhiteHouse across Lafayette Square to St. John’s Church defying those who aim to derail our national healing by spreading fear, hate & anarchy. After just saying, ‘I will keep you safe.’”

But evangelicals are not monolithic: some saw the gesture as cynical, a ploy by a president whose decisions, both private and public, do not align with biblical principles. “I guess it’s a sort of Rorschach test, then,” said Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress, who is one of Trump’s most important defenders among the faithful. “You see what you expect to see.”

But that’s not true, Trump’s emerging evangelical critics say: an objective measure is contained in the very book Trump wielded. “Blessed are the peacemakers! Blessed are the merciful! It’s right there in the Sermon on the Mount,” said John Fea, a professor of American history at Messiah College. “Just read Jesus.”

Trump’s photo opportunity required police to attack and push away protesters against police brutality. He walked surrounded by key civilian and military advisers, some of whom later said they were caught unaware by the stunt and the violence that preceded it. Some evangelical leaders said they felt similarly aghast, watching the event unfold.

“Pelting people with rubber bullets and spraying them with teargas for peacefully protesting is morally wrong,” said Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. “What we need right now is moral leadership – from all of us, in the churches, in the police departments, in the courts, and in the White House. The Bible tells us so. So do our own consciences.” The day’s events left Moore “alarmed”, he said.

The staunchest of evangelicals, 90-year-old televangelist Pat Robertson, split from Trump on Tuesday. He told his television viewers of the president: “He said, ‘I’m ready to send in military troops if the nation’s governors don’t act to quell the violence that has rocked American cities.’ A matter of fact, he spoke of them as being jerks. You just don’t do that, Mr President. It isn’t cool!”

It could be far worse than uncool, politically. Trump can’t afford to lose evangelicals, even by the handful. A record 81% of white evangelicals voted for him in 2016, and he only narrowly won the presidency, sometimes by just a few thousand votes in crucial areas. His gesture with the Bible outside St John’s was meant to shore up that support, reminding his base of a tacit agreement.

“It’s a contract between him and evangelical voters,” Fea, the professor, who is a Christian, said. In exchange for their ballots, he said, Trump has packed the courts, including the supreme court, with conservative judges who agree with them on social issues. So while evangelicals lifted Trump to power by voting together, they may prove his undoing if a contingent breaks away. In which case his campaign might shudder to hear of evangelical believers like Anthony Kidd in Daphne, Alabama.

Carfacemandog wrote: »

The polling numbers are there to show that the majority of Americans are in favour of universal healthcare. The majority of Americans are also opposed to eliminating private healthcare, but having one doesn't mean having to have the other, hence why they support the former while opposing the latter.

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

No hysterical over reaction from you so.... :rolleyes:

You would swear it was America's first race riot under any American President.

Sasse added that he wanted to know when the committee was going to vote so he could skip the talking. “The reality is if we didn’t have cameras in this room, the discussion would be different,” Sasse said. “The Senate doesn’t work, it doesn’t diffuse the partisan tensions that are leading the country toward dissolution. I’m for transparency. I’m for print reporters being everywhere. I’m for audio transcripts being everywhere. But 90 percent of our committees are about trolling for soundbites. That’s what actually happens.”

Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) took issue with Sasse’s accusation, and seemed to suggest that he had been referring to committee Democrats. “I don’t think they’re trolling for soundbites. I think they’re genuinely upset with what I’m doing,” Graham said. After Sasse clarified that the criticism was “bipartisan,” Graham defended himself.

“I don’t think I’m trolling for a soundbite. I’m trying to defend what I think we need to be doing as chairman. There happens to be a TV camera. I think we’d be having the same conversation if there wasn’t a television camera,” Graham said, to which Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) chimed in, “I would.”

Watch above via C-SPAN.

aloyisious wrote: »

After his Bible-waving exercise of his 1st amendment rights, and his bible-signing exercise last week, Don hasn't been totally abandoned by his religious right support base after all. Franklin Graham was not offended by it but by the other Christians being upset and commenting about Don using the bible and church as photo-op devices. Fox News was there as another device for Frank to express his support for his president. Does it mean the religious right is foundering on the Trump?

https://www.foxnews.com/us/trump-bible-photo-franklin-graham

Carfacemandog wrote: »

There is no method nor grand plan, but y and large there never has been when it comes to Trump himself (as opposed to those around him). One thing to be extremely con earned about though, is that there very well may not be an election.

The elections are ran by the st tws themselves but if 2020 continues to be as unkind to Trump as it has been, I pretty much expect by now that we will see a small handful of the more sychophantic governors (DeSantis, Kemp for example) come up with some nosnense reason to cancel elections in their state, followed by Trump (or more to the point, Barr) stating that the election must now be postponed until a unspecified future date as all 50 states must be represented. And that future date will simply never happen until they feel they have it wrapped up.

There might be umpteen laws and conventions broken in doing that, but has that stopped this administration from doing of trying to circumvent alws and procedures before? They would be well aware that they would just need to muddy the waters enough to get past the date, and abstruct any investigations into it to slow down to a crawl.

Keep in mind that some in the Senate have already shown they will not vote to obstruct even when they know he was broken the law, as happened with the Ukraine case.

Overheal wrote: »

Naturally this old rally clip is coming back around timely for a haunt of current events. Perhaps we will see this in a large number of campaign ads.


Trump mocks police brutality victims pleading “I can’t breathe”

https://twitter.com/junotheson/status/1267325223264649216?s=21

https://youtu.be/531VeqkY2nE

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Technically yes.

But that's under a constitution and legal structure that Barr and Trump have no issue ignoring, twisting or shítting on as they see fit.

So yeah, if there's no election she assumes the office, but that's under assumption that those rules are kept to.

timsey tiger wrote: »

Well that's unfortunate for Trump then, because it sickened me and I wouldn't have bothered fact checking it. I'm sure many are like me.

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

That's the problem, right now it looks like America doesn't have a president. He refuses to do a televised address, sends his lacky's out to do press briefings instead of doing press conferences himself and basically hides away, the only time he has really been seen is after his stormtroopers gassed protesters and he did his silly little photo op.

moon2 wrote: »

This is a lie.

The context around this is that Trump was mocking Bloomberg for 'choking' - panicking while being unable to answer a tough question.

abff wrote: »

Be that as it may, the fact is that the visual of Trump saying that in a mocking tone of voice is going to create such a visceral sense of revulsion that it will (hopefully) persuade a significant number of people that they need to ensure that this monstrosity is removed from office.

And before you shout foul play, this is far milder than many of the lies and obfuscations that Trump has used to further his own cause.

But I guess your argument is that it should be one rule for Trump and a different rule for everyone else?

timsey tiger wrote: »

Given the Mad Dog's sabre rattling over a little crowd control. I guess we could see coup d'etat in the US then.