Trump’s Dividing of America

[Red]

So the Republicans are reviving an oldie but goodie from the Vietnam War years: "America, love it or leave it!" Of course, this does beg the question of how one objectively determines whether an individual loves America, or not. Lindsey Graham, in a moment of honesty, establishes the standard: if an individual agrees with the president, that's Donald Trump by the way, that individual would be welcomed by the president to stick around, that individual is a true American. Really, let's face it. The standard is: Trump is the State. If you love Trump, you love the State. If you love Trump, you love America. Can't possibly be a problem with that standard, makes it all quite easy to establish who is a "true American", and who might do well to find another place to live....

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

AOC and the rest of the "squad" are legislative backbenchers who, albeit outspoken, have relatively little influence within the party. Nonetheless, they have become the new boogeymen who hide under Republicans' beds and go bump in the night. Given that the Republican message is largely fear based, its brain addled base needs something to fear, and Trump is handing them a two-fer, brown skinned and female, two things that'll make the skin crawl on the easily scared and manipulated Republican base.

For what it's worth, the Republican Congress is literally full of whack job, extremist wingnuts who say and do all shorts of dumb and scary sh**, and yet, four relatively powerless brown women have the Dear Leader and his loyal personality cultists all in a fear-induced tizzy.

 

[Deleted member 365]

AOC and the rest of the "squad" are legislative backbenchers who, albeit outspoken, have relatively little influence within the party. Nonetheless, they have become the new boogeymen who hide under Republicans' beds and go bump in the night. Given that the Republican message is largely fear based, its brain addled based needs something to fear, and Trump is handing them a two-fer, brown skinned and female, two things that'll make the skin crawl on the easily scared and manipulated Republican base.

For what it's worth, the Republican Congress is literally full of whack job, extremist wingnuts who say and do all shorts of dumb and scary sh**, and yet, four relatively powerless brown women have the Dear Leader and his loyal personality cultists all in a fear-induced tizzy.

If it wasn't the squad it would've been Nancy Pelosi, Colin Kaepernick, or BLM. The right always finds a Boogeyman to rile up their base.

While I agree a lot with Never Trumpers, I disagree with them when they call for "The Squad" to quiet down. Expand their coalition to other representatives? Sure. But quiet down or risk upsetting the GOP's base? Laughable.

The GOP most likely would've gone after them had they been outspoken or not. Hell, AOC was demonized by the reich before she was even sworn in. They went crazy because an attractive and liberal Latina won office. I'd say 90 percent of the hate she generates is because the sexually frustrated white dudes who mock her know she wouldn't give them the time of day.

Remember this video? It made the white supremacists heads explodey:

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

I was not aware that thanking someone for helping with the campaign was intimidation.

What in the hell are you talking about?

So did I, at one point. I was wrong. I have learned better. In less than two years, the political landscape has changed for Democrats in this regard.

How convenient of you to come to such a realization exactly when it benefits your political views. I predict you (or at least large numbers of people like you) will come to a different realizations when it suits your goals.

Al Franken was certainly an embarrassment to Republicans, as he was smart, charismatic, and chastised them effectively over and over. I read a few conservative columnists who thought the Democrats were fools for hounding him out of office. That's one of the reasons I know which party actually has started taking sexual harassment seriously.

He was an idiot.

Well, you just go on being certain, and you just go on making excuses for Republican politicians because political power matters more to you than decency.

So hysterical to be lectured about this sort of thing by a group that literally wrote the book on making excuses for their politicians.

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

If it wasn't the squad it would've been Nancy Pelosi, Colin Kaepernick, or BLM. The right always finds a Boogeyman to rile up their base.

While I agree a lot with Never Trumpers, I disagree with them when they call for "The Squad" to quiet down. Expand their coalition to other representatives? Sure. But quiet down or risk upsetting the GOP's base? Laughable.

The GOP most likely would've gone after them had they been outspoken or not. Hell, AOC was demonized by the reich before she was even sworn in. They went crazy because an attractive and liberal Latina won office. I'd say 90 percent of the hate she generates is because the sexually frustrated white dudes who mock her know she wouldn't give them the time of day.

Remember this video? It made the white supremacists heads explodey:

From a purely strategic perspective, I wish the Squad (and Bernie) would STFU and play the long game. True, the Republicans would find some other boogeyman to give them night terrors, but why hand them something that so clearly resonates and which can be co-branded as the Right's ultimate boogeyman (socialism, dear me, gasp, hand me my smelling salts). The #1 objective is to win and to get Trump and Republicans out of power. This goal supersedes any other consideration. As long as #Trumpsterfire and Republicans are in power, Progressives cannot enact their legislative agenda. So, IF it takes toning things down for another 1.5 years, then they should do it, and once the orange hued Dear Leader is out of power and hurtling inevitably toward the trash heap where history will consign him, then they, and all other Progressives, are that much closer to achieving their progressive goals.

 

[Red]

"A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current," Orwell said of his fictional mob. That description is — I hope — as-yet hyperbolic to apply to Trump's crowd, though the president's behavior has observers left and right alike worried he will incite violence against Omar or the American Muslim community more broadly. But Orwell's next sentence is already apt: The "rage that one felt" during the Two Minutes Hate, he wrote, "was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp." The anger of Trump loyalists is similarly supple, constantly redirected from one target to another, each one cast as an enemy of "real America," which coincidentally looks just like them."

https://theweek.com/articles/853549/no-longer-brave-new-world-back-1984

Of course, this is all just Trump Derangement Syndrome, nothing to really see here. No need to remain vigilant and protective of democracy and democratic institutions. No need to be concerned that a cynical, manipulative narcissist would ever come to power here. Not here, we can let our guard down, secure in the knowledge that some things just cannot happen here, no, not here....

 

[Zombie]

Guess we're detaining US citizens now. Cool.

 

[Jazzta]

Guess we're detaining US citizens now. Cool.

This is getting pretty creepy... wtf

 

[Red]

A moment in the Post Truth era. To paraphrase Timothy Snyder, here Trump's "truth" is oracular, not factual, evidence is now irrelevant. Truth is what he says it is.....



Meanwhile...

It's Friday, and time for another Donald Trump back flip. Anybody getting dizzy yet?

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

"A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current," Orwell said of his fictional mob. That description is — I hope — as-yet hyperbolic to apply to Trump's crowd, though the president's behavior has observers left and right alike worried he will incite violence against Omar or the American Muslim community more broadly. But Orwell's next sentence is already apt: The "rage that one felt" during the Two Minutes Hate, he wrote, "was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp." The anger of Trump loyalists is similarly supple, constantly redirected from one target to another, each one cast as an enemy of "real America," which coincidentally looks just like them."

https://theweek.com/articles/853549/no-longer-brave-new-world-back-1984

Of course, this is all just Trump Derangement Syndrome, nothing to really see here. No need to remain vigilant and protective of democracy and democratic institutions. No need to be concerned that a cynical, manipulative narcissist would ever come to power here. Not here, we can let our guard down, secure in the knowledge that some things just cannot happen here, no, not here....

The term "Trump Derangement Syndrome" has been hi-jacked by the Right, previously used to explain the Right's hysterical, irrational frothing at the mouth about Hillary or Obama. The irony was when my Teabagger brother threw this term at me; the same guy who spent each day during the 8 years of the Obama administration hysterically ginning up some imagined outrage that Obama had committed (e.g., Obamacare was part of the Left's strategy to destroy capitalism and eliminate our freedoms; no, I am not exaggerating).

Of course, Obama wasn't an unqualified, corrupt, narcissistic, norms destroying, racist xenophobe, wanna-be authoritarian, sycophant to tyrants and murderers, serial sexual assaulter, incompetent, unread, illiterate, incurious, moron, disrupter of the post WW II consensus regarding trade and alliances, inveterate liar, money launderer, etc. So, there's that.

 

[Red]

Guess we're detaining US citizens now. Cool.

Incredible. In other news, one of the "best people" Trump promised to surround himself with, Steve Miller, apparently wants to tear down the Statue of Liberty and sell it for scrap....

 

[One Brow]

What in the hell are you talking about?

Broaddrick's testimony of what Hillary Clinton actually said to her. I believe Broaddrick's account of what Bill Clinton did, and I believe she gave a largely accurate report of what Hillary Clinton said. I believe Broaddrick found the exchange triggering, after what she had been through. I just don't see the evidence that Hillary Clinton intended that as intimidation, that that she even knew about Bill Clinton raping Broaddrick.

How convenient of you to come to such a realization exactly when it benefits your political views.

It was not convenient when Franken was rmoved from office, nor Garrison Keillor from public life. However, they both deserved it.

I predict you (or at least large numbers of people like you) will come to a different realizations when it suits your goals.

Believe what you want.

He was an idiot.

An excellent example of your ability to believe despite evidence.

So hysterical to be lectured about this sort of thing by a group that literally wrote the book on making excuses for their politicians.

Both sides made excuses for generations. Excuses were made for Eisenhower, Kennedy, Bush I, and Clinton. Our side just stopped making them first. Yours may catch up, eventually.