Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Stormspellz]

We do have to treat this with a little bit of solemnity. This isn't like returning a jacket that you didn't like the look of. He won, and up until this Ukraine deal, I could say with 100% certainty he didn't deserve to be impeached. The best that they had on him up until now was that he was really angry at being accused of conspiring with Russia to steal the election, and in the course of being angry about it he allegedly obstructed the investigation. I'd be a lot more sympathetic if he had done the thing and tried to cover it up, but he was right to be incensed over the Mueller probe when he knew the idea of a conspiracy with Russia was laughable. We're still waiting on I believe two investigations on that, one of them from the IG.

You know, so he had his whole presidency basically under a dark cloud. And for what? Nothing. It was all a mirage. They were ruthless and mesmerized. It was like living in a funhouse. Everybody knew he was going down any day now, already got so many people for so many things, the inner circle of criminals surrounding Trump were going down and he was next. Funhouse mirrors. So they moved on to obstruction, very deftly, and now we're talking about Ukraine. But in that, I haven't looked into it enough to make a solid determination. Been out of the political loop for a while. So maybe he's got his hands dirty on that one, I don't know, but he certainly got the short end of the stick on Trump-Russia Collusion.

I don't mean to sound so sympathetic to the guy, but I think half the outrage against him is just not that serious. But it's played up to be serious. And you're a bad person if you're not also angry at the thing, whatever it is that day. Now don't get me wrong, he's said and done some very hypocritical, cruel, and completely inappropriate and classless things. I don't defend any of that. But like I said, I'm detached enough to call them like I see them.

100% certain? and you would be 100% wrong - obstruction is an impeachable act - and he did it, bribery is an impeachable act - and he did it, gross incompetence is an impeachable act - and he is it. breaking federal laws is an impeachable act - and he did it. and on and on. All before this most recent Ukraine situation.

I don't mean to sound so sympathetic to the guy, but I think half the outrage against him is just not that serious

yes you do, you mean to lie and anything else in defense of your emperor trump

he's said and done some very hypocritical, cruel, and completely inappropriate and classless things

[Elegiac]

It goes a lot deeper than that. Hillary in the White House means something. It means something for progressivism. If I were to prognosticate, I'd be willing to bet gun control would be in the cards. I know you've protested this assertion before, but under pressure from her left-wing allies, she'd almost certainty make some moves in that direction. And that's just an example. But really, an unbalanced Supreme Court scares me. Because it's now sort of flipped the other way, I grapple with the unfairness of a lopsided court in my favor. I was worried about losing my voice in SCOTUS, and now the left has sort of lost their voice. I don't know how to fix this long-term, but a Supreme Court lopsided to the left concerned me greatly.

*sips wine*

Here's the thing.

This argument is dishonest on the face of it. Namely because you had a long and bitter Democratic primary to show everyone that Hillary was clearly the moderate, establishment candidate - the only reason anyone would think otherwise is if they'd been listening to, say, far right media that had been making her out to be Super Hitler: The Hitler That Can Fly for the past three decades.

Edge's point is extremely salient. The Republican party has been crying socialist at every Democratic candidate cycle after cycle, to the point that the general public seems fatigued enough for the term to be normalised and reclaimed. And in pulling further and further to the right, it's inspired an equal and opposite reaction in the left.

Now, I want to make something clear - what we're witnessing here isn't necessarily the death of American democracy. Far from it. I've told folks to read up on Chantal Mouffe's philosophy, but for brevity's sake I'll summarise it: too much consensus is fundamentally bad for democracy. It helps create an environment of political apathy and stagnation, whereas a healthy democracy has strong partisan poles. What you need to understand that as the consensus politics of the post-Reagan era are cast aside, that will necessarily entail a rebalancing of the political median.

The complicating factor here is that in trying desperately to stop the world from turning by any and every means, Trump and the GOP are setting incredibly dangerous precedents. A Democrat *will* occupy the White House again some day sort of a complete abolition of elections, and there is a very real risk to Republicans that Democrat ends up being a progressive who a) will be nowhere near as incompetent as Trump but b) will have an equal level of antipathy for established rules and norms and will use the precedents set in the Trump era to enact broad change.

So rather than having to suffer under milquetoast gun control legislation that realistically would not have impacted you, there is now legal precedent for an actual progressive to attempt broad buybacks and seizures without Congressional approval. Because unlike the magical threat that Pelosi's flower garden was supposed to protect against, firearms are in fact a national emergency.

As is climate change. Imagine a President Ocasio-Cortez using the Trump doctrine as precedent to divert billions of dollars in funding for defense spending in red states, shifting that towards climate change mitigation and decarbonization. Trump aside, let's cast a broader aspersion at the GOP's antics with the Senate. Because rather than having to obtain broad consensus for executive and judicial postings by means of a cloture vote, a progressive could conceivably ram through hard left judges on the thinnest of Congressional margins - judges that will not hesitate for a second to find everything from a wealth tax to universal basic income entirely constitutional.

The American political landscape you knew is in a state of terminal decline. That you're trying to reduce all of this to...dare I use the term...Trump Derangement Syndrome...is actually fairly telling. Skroe pointed this out several times when he's brought up Priebus' 2012 postmortem; when confronted with the reality that the economic and demographic landscapes are shifting, Republicans chose to ignore adaption in favor of doubling down and are willing to strike deals with the devil in order to pretend that the ground isn't shifting from under them.

[TexasRules]

I just spent 3 days in Dallas. While there, I watched the ABC/WFAA local news. On it one night a poll was released on Dallas residents voting for impeachment--a whopping 70% of Dallas residents were for impeachments. Yup. That was Dallas, Texas.

Some interesting photos of Trump's last visit to Dallas courtesy of Fox from American Airlines Center.

You should spend more then 3 days in Texas, Dallas is a dump that is run by the city council which is just plain ridiculous. It's a cess pool of special interest groups who can't or won't work together on things. There is a reason why the world's most valuable sports franchise has Dallas in their name and plays it's games in Arlington(a suburb of Fort Worth).

[Kaleredar]

You should spend more then 3 days in Texas, Dallas is a dump that is run by the city council which is just plain ridiculous. It's a cess pool of special interest groups who can't or won't work together on things. There is a reason why the world's most valuable sports franchise has Dallas in their name and plays it's games in Arlington(a suburb of Fort Worth).

Ah yes, the good ol’ “No true Scotsman Texan” argument, eh?

“If they’re Texan they support TRUMP, and if they don’t support trump they’re NOT TEXAN!”

Frankly I don’t give a damn what Texas thinks of Trump either way, suffice to say he’s losing traction in almost every imaginable way regardless.

Something about being a corrupt piece of shit and people finding out about it seems to be sullying his reputation.

[Nellise]

No, but that's not a matter for voters to have a direct hand in. That's a matter for Senators to have a hand in, who are elected by voters. And honestly, judicial picks shouldn't be a part of any campaign. That's specifically an argument for legislating via the judiciary.

I know you're mostly referring to the higher end Federal Judiciary like the Supreme Court, but most local judges are elected. Just giving my local example, but the justices on the Illinois Supreme Court are all elected (along with the lower levels too).

[Masark]

Did not catch that. I was just pointing out all the empty seats. Turned out Dallas is not a big fan of Trump. Most of the attendees came from far away. The locals mostly just rolled their eyes.

I was also pointing out the empty seats. The only way the captions could be true would if many, many clones of this fellow were in attendance.

I suppose I'm being slightly too subtle in my references.

[Rasulis]

You should spend more then 3 days in Texas, Dallas is a dump that is run by the city council which is just plain ridiculous. It's a cess pool of special interest groups who can't or won't work together on things. There is a reason why the world's most valuable sports franchise has Dallas in their name and plays it's games in Arlington(a suburb of Fort Worth).

I spend plenty of time in Austin, Houston and San Antonio also. They are even more left leaning than Dallas.

- - - Updated - - -

I was also pointing out the empty seats. The only way the captions could be true would if many, many clones of this fellow were in attendance.

I suppose I'm being slightly too subtle in my references.

Ah. I was being dense.

[Belize]

You should spend more then 3 days in Texas, Dallas is a dump that is run by the city council which is just plain ridiculous. It's a cess pool of special interest groups who can't or won't work together on things. There is a reason why the world's most valuable sports franchise has Dallas in their name and plays it's games in Arlington(a suburb of Fort Worth).

Yeah no.

Hold a Trump rally in any other major city and it'd be just as empty. Shit, Clinton held a fundraiser in Beaumont in 2016. Freaking Beaumont, population 215K.

The only thing keep the GOP afloat in Texas are all the rural votes, and the village rednecks.

[Breccia]

Trump faces a new and difficult challenge.

And it's getting worse.

The president has cycled through four permanent or acting secretaries in less than three years and must now pick a fourth after announcing earlier this month that acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan will resign.

Officials inside the Trump administration and allies outside of it have expressed frustration with the president’s inability to make a choice and worry that time is running out to get the right person installed.

Trump tweeted Oct. 11 that McAleenan would step down from his post. The president said in a tweet that he would reveal his replacement the following week, but no pick has been announced.

McAleenan was accused by some of the president’s allies of leaking information about widespread ICE raids that led to the operation being canceled, a charge he denied. But shortly before leaving, McAleenan told The Washington Post he felt he did not control the department’s tone and messaging, an implied criticism of some of the president’s more hard-line surrogates.

The White House did not respond to questions about the timing of the announcement or when McAleenan’s last day is, but the search for a new department head may be stalled by a lack of viable options.

Trump often says he prefers leaving officials in an acting capacity because it gives him flexibility. But that preference has left the president boxed in when searching for a new DHS secretary because of the Federal Vacancies Act, which stipulates that the secretary position must be filled by an official confirmed by the Senate.

With Trump's re-envisioning DHS as "keep the brown people off my lawn" the agency means he needs someone not only willing to push that extreme policy, but also, someone willing to join his administration now, of all times, but hasn't joined already.

It's going to be an uphill struggle. Hopefully he has a golf cart.

[zenkai]

@zenkai

two words:

Magabomber

[IMG]https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/NINTCHDBPICT000444707532.jpg?strip=all&w=814&quality=100[/]

Magamobile

[img]https://www.dailydot.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/cesar-sayoc-jr-van-stickers.jpg[/]


Some Trump supports have become literal domestic terrorists. You lose.

WTF are you going on about? This is like saying the guy who shot Republicans on a baseball field means are just as much terrorist as trump supporters are. Why did you even post this? The ignorance of this post is astounding but not surprising. Wow you pointed out one nut, out of millions, totally vindicated

[Orbitus]

WTF are you going on about? This is like saying the guy who shot Republicans on a baseball field means are just as much terrorist as trump supporters are. Why did you even post this? The ignorance of this post is astounding but not surprising. Wow you pointed out one nut, out of millions, totally vindicated

You have one example, we have literally probably dozens of right wing terrorist and hate attacks since Trump announced he was running for office.

[zenkai]

You have one example, we have literally probably dozens of right wing terrorist and hate attacks since Trump announced he was running for office.

Are you saying right wing terrorist didn't exist until Trump? How many Trump supporters have been beaten up and threaten for wearing a red hat? The problem is political extremest are on both sides of the isle. The sad thing is when it happens on the D side people here defend it.

[Orbitus]

Are you saying right wing terrorist didn't exist until Trump? How many Trump supporters have been beaten up and threaten for wearing a red hat? The problem is political extremest are on both sides of the isle. The sad thing is when it happens on the D side people here defend it.

Nope, I am saying that it has gotten worse since Trump came into office. And just probably less Trump supporters have been beaten up or threatened than liberals or gay people.

And the "D sided" people don't defend them, we cast them out and chastise them, meanwhile you have Republicans that have literally been elected to office after credible accusations of sexual assault, assault on reporters, and convicted felons running for office. You can't say the same thing for Democrats.

[zenkai]

Nope, I am saying that it has gotten worse since Trump came into office. And just probably less Trump supporters have been beaten up or threatened than liberals or gay people.

And the "D sided" people don't defend them, we cast them out and chastise them, meanwhile you have Republicans that have literally been elected to office after credible accusations of sexual assault, assault on reporters, and convicted felons running for office. You can't say the same thing for Democrats.

Look at any thread that is about someone attacking someone with a red hat, hell look at the covington kid who was falsely accused of something he didn't do and it will prove your statement false.

[kaelleria]

Look at any thread that is about someone attacking someone with a red hat, hell look at the covington kid who was falsely accused of something he didn't do and it will prove your statement false.

And? There's been a statistical rise in hate crimes and the instances of right wing violence have been way more prevalent since Trump took office.

Only one side is mailing bombs and shooting up Walmarts.

[Skulltaker]

Are you saying right wing terrorist didn't exist until Trump? How many Trump supporters have been beaten up and threaten for wearing a red hat? The problem is political extremest are on both sides of the isle. The sad thing is when it happens on the D side people here defend it.

No. Right (and Left) Wing Terrorists have, in their own form, existed for hundreds of years, and will continue to do so. On their own, none of them are particularly dangerous to society. This might sound heartless, but an asshole who shoots a few people, or who lights some cars on fire, is only dangerous to the individual, but not the community.

Just to stress this point: In no form do I condone their behavior, or endorse it. This is merely an abstract look at the bigger picture. Every form of political violence is completely intolerable, if unavoidable.

These people only start to become a threat when they organize and group up and start a movement. Because now they attract a different crowd. Opportunists. These people don't give a flying fuck about any political agenda, they only care about the profit they can make of it. They'll shout 'Sieg Heil' just as willingly as 'For the Soviet Union!' or whatever slogan you want to rally them behind, it matters very little to them. Not saying that there are no opportunistic extremists, of course. These people help to guide and organize, something your average left- or rightwing extremist usually isn't very good at, since, let's be honest, the masses of extremists of any color aren't the sharpest tools out there.

If you give them a leader, a figure to rise behind, they gain traction. They attract more and more people, or they bully them into compliance. If you have a leader who makes it publically accepted to discriminate, to spread lies, to outright ignore the truth, they'll start to do the same, and they start gaining influence.
Do you honestly think even half of the people working for Trump actually believe in the guy or what he says? Of course not. They see him as a means to get whatever they want. A few hundred years ago, it was the nobles who endorsed the crusades. 'Sure, god wills it. I'm going to sack this Muslim town for god, and definitely not for its wealth and land.' 'Yes, Mein Führer, the jews are sub-human filth, we should totally kill them, and, oh, while we're at it, take their money. How much is this new position of Reichskommisar paying, you said?' 'Sure, comrade, the wealth of the people needs to be properly managed, I can do that. How much more is this political position paying you said? For the betterment of all mankind, I'll do this well-payed job in a dirt-poor country.'

It's always the same. It always starts the same. The words used change, the message remains the same. Give the people something to focus their frustration, and bam, you're in business.

Oh, and, no, I am not comparing Trump to Hitler, or Stalin, or whomever. But the parallels with extremist regimes are quite obvious. It doesn't have to get as bad. But you already have people flat-out lying, denying the truth, shouting down people who oppose their opinions (on both sides), formations of groups. A small reminder that the president said that getting rid of him might lead to civil war, and just look on how many people agree with him, or play it down. You have members of the government that outright say that violations of the constitution are ok, and people downplay that aswell.

[Ghostpanther]

Another Trumphater in action....https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-m...victim-reports

A Florida man was arrested after he allegedly spit on a fellow bar patron wearing a MAGA hat Friday and later told police he didn't care because he has “more time on this earth" than the man he attacked, according to reports.

Matthias Ajple, 43, allegedly approached Robert Youngblood, 67, at a bar in Vero Beach, slapped the bill of his hat, told him to “go back to Russia, you f--- communist," spit on him and then left the bar, The Smoking Gun, citing the police, reported.

Really brave too, attacking a elderly man.

[Dontrike]

Another Trumphater in action....https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-m...victim-reports

A Florida man was arrested after he allegedly spit on a fellow bar patron wearing a MAGA hat Friday and later told police he didn't care because he has “more time on this earth" than the man he attacked, according to reports.

Matthias Ajple, 43, allegedly approached Robert Youngblood, 67, at a bar in Vero Beach, slapped the bill of his hat, told him to “go back to Russia, you f--- communist," spit on him and then left the bar, The Smoking Gun, citing the police, reported.

Really brave too, attacking a elderly man.

Spitting! Oh no! Someone call the church elders!

[Daelak]

Someone being spit at is 110% equivalent to running people over and posting bombs to people. Yup.

Get a grip.
/spit

Both sides man, both sides. Considering how many migrant children have been detained and separated from their parents, and how widely reported it was, if you still have the prerogative to wear Trump paraphernalia, you are not free from consequences of your speech.

[Howel]

Another Trumphater in action....https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-m...victim-reports

A Florida man was arrested after he allegedly spit on a fellow bar patron wearing a MAGA hat Friday and later told police he didn't care because he has “more time on this earth" than the man he attacked, according to reports.

Matthias Ajple, 43, allegedly approached Robert Youngblood, 67, at a bar in Vero Beach, slapped the bill of his hat, told him to “go back to Russia, you f--- communist," spit on him and then left the bar, The Smoking Gun, citing the police, reported.

Really brave too, attacking a elderly man.

Let's hope he recovers quickly, without too many grim scars.