Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

Trump is a symptom, not a cause. You can remove Trump (either because his heart finally fails or because he is isolated under house arrest) and his cultists will just move on to the next best thing.

Agreed...but the "next best thing" won't be nearly as bad. There is no person currently still alive that would have the power to draw in a cult like Trump has. It would, at the minimum, be a short-term solution.

Keeping there from being a "next Trump" would require a massive change in public behavior. One might say, "deprogramming".

[Gorsameth]

Agreed...but the "next best thing" won't be nearly as bad. There is no person currently still alive that would have the power to draw in a cult like Trump has. It would, at the minimum, be a short-term solution.

Keeping there from being a "next Trump" would require a massive change in public behaviour. One might say, "deprogramming".

Your just making me feel salty about the 'Basket of Deplorables". People gave her so much shit over that but even at the time it was clear she was entirely right. There has part of the Republican party that can simply not be reasoned with and publicly proud of being unreasonable since atleast Obama.

A black man becoming President really made America go insane.

[Breccia]

A black man becoming President really made America go insane.

Ann Coulter Says Obama Was ‘The Most Articulate President We’ve Probably Ever Had’ and Trump ‘Has a Vocabulary of 50 Words’

One thing I’ve noticed about presidents is we tend to go back and forth, I mean it’s like me going back and forth on boyfriends, the smart, ugly one and the good-looking, stupid one.

And you just keep going back and forth, back and forth.

And the voters similarly seem to go back and forth between highly articulate presidents and marbles in their mouth presidents. So [Ronald] Reagan: Unbelievably articulate. I mean it drove Democrats crazy and oh, Hollywood, Hollywood. And then we get marbles in his mouth George Bush one. Then we get Mr. Smooth, Bill Clinton and oh, melts in your mouth. And then we go from there to another marbles in your mouth Bush to oh my gosh, the most articulate president we’ve probably ever had, Barack Obama, to Trump who has a vocabulary of about 50 words.

There's more, but I thought that was pretty appropriate -- and recent, that's two days ago -- to your comment.

[alach]

Thanks for the insight.

This spread of disinformation really is the plague of the 21st century.
Its so strange seeing a normal hard working person go to a mindless zombie praising Putin and communism and screeching about George Soros' deep state in only a year.
Oh well.

[diller]

Thanks for the insight.

Usually bad things happen to these people that makes them understand what they were doing was wrong, like this woman

[Sunseeker]

He has assets. That doesn't mean he has money.

I posted tongue-in-cheek - but as much as Guiliani has jumped on the crazy train I can't imagine he thought he could just stop paying taxes. I'm assuming he's in this situation because his behavior in the last decade has caused all of his cash-on-hand to vanish and he can't leverage his assets enough or fast enough to pay his taxes.

It's also possible his tax liabilities came from playing games with the tax code and didn't come from actual income which could pay those taxes. Who knows.

I'm not terribly concerned with what the answer is.

My point is that if you own a $4.5M asset and can afford to keep it, but cannot figure out how to leverage it, you probably shouldn't be owning a $4.5M asset.

As the old saying goes "A fool and his money are soon parted."

Or maybe he could pay his bills by cutting back on Starbucks and avocado toast.

[Poopymonster]

I blame the status of the GOP on the combination of Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and the end of the Fairness Doctrine.

Rush mostly. He radicalized and brainwashed millions of listeners that Democrats and liberals were evil. Once that's established, it wouldn't matter if Jesus Christ himself was the Democrat nominee, he would be run out of town. Not to mention, he perfected the the classic "my vices are okay because I'm a conservative" defense.

For those unaware of the reach of Limbaugh, Rolling Stone put out a good article about his impact on US politics.

Rush Limbaugh Did His Best to Ruin America



It is my contention that all the trolls in the GOP can trace their inspiration back to Rush.

Do you think he ever forgave his lungs for turning black?
I mean before he died that is.

[Nymrohd]

Your just making me feel salty about the 'Basket of Deplorables".

I don't really get why that mattered. Who would have voted for Hillary but did not because of that comment?

[Captain N]

Limbaugh put out propaganda books aimed at children. His brainwashing bullshit was to convince people from young ages the Conservative version of American History.

[Attackrabbit]

I don't really get why that mattered. Who would have voted for Hillary but did not because of that comment?

There's at least one guy on the forums who has said that is explicitly the reason as to why they didn't vote for Hillary :s

[Sunseeker]

I don't really get why that mattered. Who would have voted for Hillary but did not because of that comment?

Time proved the people who did, were.

[Huehuecoyotl]

Cultists work on faith, and faith does not require proof.

It's worse than that. Faith DEMANDS that you actively ignore proof, because proof is a test of your faith. People are trained that anything that undermines their faith is an attack on the people that make up that faith and their beliefs. Which by extension includes those believers in that faith. Proof not just can be ignored, it MUST be ignored, because to do otherwise would make you a failure. You would have allowed your faith to be shaken.

The only way around it is to get to people young, through the education system, and raise them with critical thinking skills that allow them to recognise the signs of joining a cult. Which is why the push to undermine education is so strong to the cultists. Because you can't indoctrinate the next generation of believers if they don't have the same warped view of the importance of faith.

It's sickening. And having lost a sister to this nonsense, I recognise that nobody is safe from it. It may be the most dangerous thing in the world in democratic nations, and Trump and his followers are just one example of it. The idiots following him will be ripe for the next con as and when Trump is gone. Someone else will take up the MAGA mantle, and the morons will follow it in lockstep.

[Edge-]

When something you're involved with is compared to the Fyre Festival...that's bad.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...us-1234848510/

IN THE WEEKS leading up to the start of his $250 million civil fraud trial in New York, Donald Trump and his attorneys privately discussed how they believed defeat in this trial was preordained. Their best chance — and it wasn’t much, according to two sources familiar with the matter and another two people briefed on internal deliberations — would be to fight the case on appeal.

This belief led to the development of an approach to the case that centers around chaos and cacophony, rather than any attempt to win it on the merits. One person close to Trump describes it as the “Fyre Festival strategies.”

That approach — “let’s just do it and be legends,” in the words of the festival’s founder — famously turned Fyre Fest into a scandal-riddled disaster. But Trump and his lawyers are hoping that their legal strategy in their ongoing courtroom “suicide mission” will score some political and public-relations points for Trump, kick up as much dirt as possible, enrage the judge, gratuitously trash some of the witnesses, and turn the process into a media circus.

On the bolded - I'll note in the 40's, I believe, a whole mess of fascists/Nazi's in the US, including some members of Congress, went to trial for various plots to overthrow the government and there was a considerable amount of evidence that should have made it a slam dunk case.

The strategy of the defense, which saw dozens tried together, was just this - total chaos. To intentionally participate in bad faith and to do everything possible to interrupt and slow the process down and to annoy everyone, including packing hundreds of envelopes mid-trial.

Once again the tactics of the far right, be they Nazi's or not, don't seem to have changed much over the years. It's always bad faith participation.

[Gorsameth]

When something you're involved with is compared to the Fyre Festival...that's bad.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...us-1234848510/



On the bolded - I'll note in the 40's, I believe, a whole mess of fascists/Nazi's in the US, including some members of Congress, went to trial for various plots to overthrow the government and there was a considerable amount of evidence that should have made it a slam dunk case.

The strategy of the defense, which saw dozens tried together, was just this - total chaos. To intentionally participate in bad faith and to do everything possible to interrupt and slow the process down and to annoy everyone, including packing hundreds of envelopes mid-trial.

Once again the tactics of the far right, be they Nazi's or not, don't seem to have changed much over the years. It's always bad faith participation.

You can't leave us in suspense like this.
Did it work the previous time?

[Edge-]

You can't leave us in suspense like this.
Did it work the previous time?

Actually, yeah. Damn near drove the judge in the case to insanity, too. Though IIRC they had a jury trial where there were some sympathetic folks on it. Not for Donald's trial given his F-tier lawyers "oopsie doodle"

Because most institutions aren't really built and most people aren't designed to stand up to that kind of persistent, forceful, bad-faith ratfuckery - with help from conservatives in Congress in time who were willing propagandists for the Nazis.

Good podcast on the topic overall, Ultra. It's Maddow doing more political history, but it was pretty fascinating given how we're continuing to see a lot of overlaps with fascism and the far-right in the US, including from the religious right. None of which is remotely new, unfortunately.

[Gorsameth]

That is actually damn depressing...

fuck. Lets hope history does not repeat itself.

[Edge-]

https://themessenger.com/politics/tr...er-same-people

TIL Hamas are making the trip halfway around the world to go to Mexico, or one of the countries south of it, to make the dangerous trek up north to cross the southern US border. And they're...mostly working under the table in shitty jobs that Americans won't do for the wages offered and also don't want to pay more for the fruits of said labor.

This is pretty big if it's true. Surely someone is going to follow up on this and his.

[Breccia]

More information is suddenly available about the Cyber Ninjas stupid thing.

It also names Pennsylvania businessman Bill Bachenberg, who served as co-chair of a committee to reelect Trump and who helped establish the state's alternate slate of Trump electors in 2020.

UPDATE: Bachenberg, who is so rich he donates money to find fictional election fraud, fucking punched out the guy who served him.

Every single thing about the Arizona Cyber Ninjas thing has been a fucking catastrophe to every single person who touched it.

[Odinfrost]

UPDATE: Bachenberg, who is so rich he donates money to find fictional election fraud, fucking punched out the guy who served him.

Every single thing about the Arizona Cyber Ninjas thing has been a fucking catastrophe to every single person who touched it.

Whelp, I wonder if the server that will hand out the assault suit will be punched as well.

[Resurgo]

no real evidence yet... but these rumors are starting to gain traction that trump gave Russians intel which then gave it to Iran who then helped Hamas... well, you get the idea...

As president, I wanted to share with Russia facts related to terrorism and airline flight safety, which I have an absolute right to do. This was driven by humanitarian reasons, and I also aimed to encourage Russia to enhance its efforts against ISIS and terrorism.

Stuff like this, is what I picture would be entirely possible with trump.