Will You Accept the Findings of the Muller Probe?

[Red]

Our Trumpistas are defending autocracy in America. Will our Trumpistas ever wake up to who they are defending here? I don't know about anyone else, but I doubt it. Part of an educated electorate they are not. Well, who knows, maybe someday the scales will fall from their eyes and they will actually wake up, although methinks they actually prefer a monarch....

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/trump-just-suggested-great-attorney-160900317.html

"The current President of the United States is not compatible with a constitutional republic. The two cannot coexist. Day by day, Donald Trump, American president, is laying waste to the pillars of democracy, determined to destroy any institution that might provide a check on his power or provide an avenue to hold him accountable for what he has done."

"He has first and foremost attacked the separation of powers laid out in the Constitution, wherein Congress is a co-equal branch of government to the Executive and has the authority to investigate the administration and provide oversight of the president's activities."

"He embarked on an unprecedented campaign of obstruction on congressional subpoenas..... This has culminated in his lawyers' argument, in court, that Congress actually has no power to investigate malfeasance by the president and his aides-and that, consequently, Watergate was an illegitimate investigation."

"The president has waged war on the institution of the free press, attempting not just to undermine the credibility of news organizations that provide information independent from his regime, but also to cast journalists as Enemies of the State."

"....many instances where Donald Trump has embraced political violence from the rally podium. This month, he cracked a "joke" after a rally attendee yelled about shooting immigrants at the border."

"And lastly, he has sought to destroy the independent system of justice and the rule of law, which provide a platform for the republic to function."

"There is no longer any need to imagine what American Authoritarianism might look like. It is here. The president is a would-be autocrat. He will annihilate our constitutional republic via one thousand cuts if he is allowed to continue wielding the immense power we have so inexplicably given him. He has broken the law for much of his adult life and gotten away with it because nobody ever looked behind his golden curtain. Now he's broken the law while occupying the most heavily scrutinized office in the history of the world, and the only way to once again escape accountability for what he's done is to destroy any institution or mechanism of democracy that would allow the public to hold him accountable."

 

[Deleted member 365]

“I am not a crook! The other side is a crook!”

 

[colton]

If anyone missed Republican Congressman Justin Amash's twitter thread from May 18, I thought this was fantastic:

 

[colton]

And this twitter thread of his from May 20:

 

[colton]

And this from today, just 30 minutes ago is also well worth reading:

 

[sirkickyass]

“I am not a crook! The other side is a crook!”

I just want to say that as someone who has taken a LOT of time to understand this region of the world better at this point, it is particularly short-sighted and cruel that Trump keeps trying to pin the blame on some kind of collusion between Democrats and Ukraine.

Ukraine is making a real go at democracy and is a place where they are trying to generate hope, slowly and surely. There's a lot of evidence that they love American values and ideals. You can go on Netflix right now and watch a Ukrainian television show (part West Wing/part Parks and Recreation) called "Servant of the People." In this show, a fictional Ukrainian president is unexpectedly elected and tries to reform the fundamental corruption of this post-Soviet state. This show is a utopian fantasy, and a comedy, because it is truly an unrealistic fever dream that anyone would even attempt to be truly good at selfless government in Ukraine.

I've put a screen cap in below from the third episode, in which our president elect is having a day dream about what kind of President he'd like to be. During the day dream he communes with Abraham Lincoln and ponders the similarities between Lincoln freeing the slaves and what a good Ukrainian president would do: free common citizens from oligarchy.

Really think about this for a second: this is a society that was part of the Soviet Union less than three decades ago. The people who wrote the show grew up in the Soviet Union and went to Soviet schools. And their idealized version of what virtue could look like is aspiring to be like the United States. They IDOLIZE us.

What Donald Trump will never understand is that the image below is what real power looks like. We, as a society, occupy the realm of the Ukrainian's people's symbolic fantasy. We are a big brother they have no hope of catching but desperately worship. And it has nothing to do with raw military or economic power - but about the ideal of what it means to be a country that has civic values.

So to turn your own bad acts around, accuse the Ukrainians of crimes to save your own behind, and collude with a hostile foreign power against them is just an unbelievable betrayal. It is telling them that their dreams are a lie. Out of selfishness. No one deserves that.






Post-Script: The hope behind "Servant of the People" was so powerful and so potent that the writer/actor that portrayed the fictional president ran for actual president and won. That just happened. He was just sworn in; he quoted Ronald Reagan in his inaugural address. Imagine if a cross between Martin Sheen and Jon Stewart was the new president and everyone was excited that he might make their fantasy a reality. Very interesting time in Eastern Europe: change is in the air.

 

[Red]

We, as a society, occupy the realm of the Ukrainian's people's symbolic fantasy. We are a big brother they have no hope of catching but desperately worship. And it has nothing to do with raw military or economic power - but about the ideal of what it means to be a country that has civic values.

Thank you for this, and everything else you spoke. It's that idealization of America that I miss the most, that is in the past somewhere, in a childhood where we were "a city on a hill", a beacon. Sometimes I think "well, it never existed, grow up", but it does exist in the eloquent words of citizens like yourself, and I hope we can all see it as clear as day again.

 

[JazzGal]

I was thinking today on my drive in to work that I should give up on the idea that the United States is anything but a place that I live, nothing special, full of flawed people. Then I wouldn't be so disappointed when it continually fails to live up to the ideals that I grew up believing. Maybe I should give us another chance.

 

[colton]

Thank you for this, and everything else you spoke. It's that idealization of America that I miss the most, that is in the past somewhere, in a childhood where we were "a city on a hill", a beacon. Sometimes I think "well, it never existed, grow up", but it does exist in the eloquent words of citizens like yourself, and I hope we can all see it as clear as day again.

Well said, thanks. And thanks to kicky as well.

 

[One Brow]

So to turn your own bad acts around, accuse the Ukrainians of crimes to save your own behind, and collude with a hostile foreign power against them is just an unbelievable betrayal. It is telling them that their dreams are a lie. Out of selfishness. No one deserves that.

You are always missed around here when you stop posting.

 

[Deleted member 365]

This is normal. Everything is fine. This guy used to work in the White House. Totally normal.

 

[sirkickyass]

You are always missed around here when you stop posting.

It's a sweet thought. Honestly, I just got old and life moved on. I started posting on Jazzfanz when I was 16 or 17. Now I'm 35, and I'm pulled in a lot more directions. I can't really afford to yell at yahoos on a basketball message board with the same amount of vigor.

The Mueller report and the Russia investigation have been things I paid a LOT of attention to as I think they are going to be key events for this entire period of history, so it's hard for me to resist the urge to post about them. I'm actually flying to Moscow and St. Petersburg in roughly two weeks to spend 10 days getting better acquainted with the local culture and get a feel for what they think is happening in the world. There's no substitute for having people on the ground tell you directly how they see the world.