President Trump

Palerider said:
The JFK assassination is fascinating in that regard. There are a huge number of Americans who have spent their lives looking for "the smoking gun" amongst all the documents. They have found absolutely nothing. However, every single mistake in the investigation is looked upon as a cover up rather than just human error or incompetence. It looks to me that some people just do not trust anyone and end up believing their own fantasy world is real.
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mancityscot said:
the whole thing is really fucking weird. Trump's behaviour after being shot and nearly killed was also really fucking weird.
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Explain, i have no idea about his reaction, are you a clinical psychologist ?, i am not saying you are wrong but do enlighten us.
 
Palerider said:
Trumps not a nice man. However, coming up with rules for who is fit for office is fraught with contradictions. Off the top of my head JFK, Lyndon Johnson, Harold Wilson, John Major, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump have all cheated on their spouses. i.e they have fucked over a person who they have said they will love forever. Were any of them fit for office if their own spouse would not trust them?

Even more controversial and regardless of your view on this. Many people believe that life begins at conception and that abortion is killing a baby. Many Prime Ministers and Presidents support abortion but in the eyes of many that means that they support baby killing. Would you elect someone who picks up a new born baby for a photo op but would also support ending it's life when still in the womb?

The bottom line is that if the law says you can do it then you can do it. So Trump is legally allowed to stand for President despite his morals and behaviour not suiting everyone.
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Butlins adult weekends would render the first paragraph null and void though I appreciate the sentiment. Wedding rings and knickers on even the most loving of people tend to fall off. I would never hold sexual shenigans against anyone, shit happens. And those who say it doesnt are dreaming or hoping. For all his faults, and I am fundamentalltly repulsed by the man, sliding one into a pornstar before being president, or in fact while president even I dont care, is the least worst thing Trump has ever done. Shagging happens, its just life, and the sanctity of marriage while a nice idea, does not change that. Its just people and its life. These jealous twats who crossbow their wives or exes to death would do well to exercise this common sense and realistic view that I have
 
daveoswald said:
Explain, i have no idea about his reaction, are you a clinical psychologist ?, i am not saying you are wrong but do enlighten us.
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It's his raw political instinct that kicked in. He's a **** but a smart one and he knows how to react, even when there's a bit of his ear on the floor. The notion of "fight, fight" is never far from his mind - remember his speech to the mob on January 6 before the attack got going?
 
Uncle Wally One Ball said:
Butlins adult weekends would render the first paragraph null and void though I appreciate the sentiment. Wedding rings and knickers on even the most loving of people tend to fall off. I would never hold sexual shenigans against anyone, shit happens. And those who say it doesnt are dreaming or hoping. For all his faults, and I am fundamentalltly repulsed by the man, sliding one into a pornstar before being president, or in fact while president even I dont care, is the least worst thing Trump has ever done. Shagging happens, its just life, and the sanctity of marriage while a nice idea, does not change that. Its just people and its life. These jealous twats who crossbow their wives or exes to death would do well to exercise this common sense and realistic view that I have
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Straight on too Googling Butlins adult weekends, this is news to me.
 
SebastianBlue said:
Trump was completely unprepared for winning the election—there are entire books about how much of a scramble it was just to get the bare minimum personal in place when he was inaugurated. He ran a very lean staff for his entire term relative to previous administrations, with record levels of turnover and, by all accounts, infighting. And he still had large amounts of opposition to much of his policy aspirations and desired actions, even within his own party and administration. Over the course of those four years, he was not able to do a lot of what he wanted largely due to the internal opposition within the Republican Party, the federal government system, and, later, a Democratically lead House.

Even so, he still was able to lay the ground work for the dissolution of democratic institutions. He has created a far-right controlled Supreme Court which is stripping away women’s rights, rendering federal agencies tasked with regulating the environment, economy, and social welfare toothless, has essentially anointed anyone holding the office of President as the American King through a ludicrously ambiguous decision on Presidential Immunity, have essentially made the criminalisation of homeless people the law of the land, continues to gut voting rights, and will likely go after LGBTQ+ rights after the election. He undermined (in some cases eviscerated) several federal agencies and sold the regulation carried out by others to the highest bidder. He helped to create the immigration crisis the US faces right now, along with the insane, counterproductive policies of Republicans, even going so far as to recently kill a bipartisan bill that Republicans and Democrats negotiated for months and had the votes to pass just recently so that immigration could continue to be an issue he could campaign on (that was while he wasn’t even president). He undermined US’s leadership of NATO and support of Ukraine, which partially emboldened Putin to mount a full invasion (and since sabre-rattle about doing so in other former Soviet-controlled regions) and encouraged Xi to become more aggressive with their efforts to take Hong Kong, Taiwan, and expand their claims to the South China Sea and surrounds. He mismanaged the pandemic leading to thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of excess deaths; there are still debates as to whether it was—at least initially—an intentionally mismanagement. He further undermined public faith in the integrity of the office of the Presidency, even extending to Congress (not that the public had much faith in that body to begin with), and introduced unprecedented levels of corruption, all the while advocating, agitating, acting to be more of a dictator. He was able to almost destroy the Department of Education (which has long been a goal of the far-right and ultra-conservative Republicans); it has famously taken a massive effort to try to reconstitute it under Biden. He empowered Christian and White nationalists at both the federal and state level through both rhetoric, funding, and political appointments. He and his cronies embedded dysfunction, corruption, and distrust in to the election system, which itself is perhaps one of the most damaging, dangerous, and long lasting accomplishments. He worked to undermine public confidence in the free press, in direct rhetoric calling the media the “enemy of the people”, policy (the FCC was an absolute shambles under him and the SC continues to chip away at press freedoms), and by constantly and egregiously spreading dis- and misinformation in an official capacity. His aim was the same as Putin’s: not to simply undermine the truth, but to destroy the very concept that “truth” existed.

And, arguably the most sinister of his first term efforts, he managed to begin the process of purging the ranks of people that he deemed adversarial and/or disloyal to him—many of his previously most “trusted” associates were a part of that purge. Not disloyal to the nation or the constitution: disloyal to him and his MAGA apparatus. He has continued and accelerated that to the point now that he essentially has complete control over the Republican Party, right down to the RNC and officially related entities. He has put his family members in top level leadership roles and has completely focused all campaign efforts on his president bid, literally leaving senate, house, state, county, and local campaign coordination to volunteer groups. The campaigns is not even allowing non-Trump related political signs or other campaign materials at his various regional campaign headquarters. The Republican party was divided and in civil war in his first term; MAGA was still only a part of the right- and far-right-wing environment when he took office. The Republican Party is now, for all intents and purposes, the MAGA party. It is unified and behind Trump, with many ultra conservative (or straight far-right) entities spending literally millions (perhaps billions when all is said in done) to make sure they have a comprehensive plan and carefully selected “loyal” people to fill every role if he wins this time. They plan to purge further the federal civil service’s ranks to ensure no opposition to his every whim (or the whims of those enriching him, whether foreign or domestic) exists in his second term. And that is just one of a bevy of actions and policies his camp plans to enact as soon as he takes the oath.

The only thing that might have a chance of slowing him down would be an opposition or split Congress. But if he gets both the House and Senate, he would control all branches of government.

And I want to be clear: when I say “Trump” or “he”, I mean him and the vast network of far-right, ultra-conservative, Christian/White nationalist (I group them together because there is A LOT of overlap), corporate, and foreign actors behind him. Her is not a lone figure, bending America to his will, by any means. But he is very much a reflection and embodiment of all the bad actors that want to see him back in power, absolutely.

He will continue to use the “slow ramp” tactics of incrementally increasing the darkness and intensity of his speech and proposed actions/policies until, like Hitler, his supporters don’t even flinch when he announces he will round up all “illegal immigrants” and put them in camps for mass deportation. Or begin a programme of mass arrests of dissenters and political opposition. Or pass laws returning women’s rights back to the 1700s. Or institute policies (and agitate for Supreme Court decisions) to abolish the first amendment, installing Evangelical Christianity as the official religion of the US and allowing him to have unchecked powers over the media.



See above. He managed to lay the ground work in his first, largely disjointed term. His second term will be very different. His Supreme Court’s truly catastrophic Presidential Immunity ruling will empower him to far more, far more quickly. And his term will likely not end at the constitutionally-mandated 4 years (8 years in total). Do you really think he will just leave at the end?

I would clarify, as well, that my comparison is of Trump now to Hitler prior to his rise to absolute power, which occurred in the mid-1930s. Trump obviously has not become “fuhrer” type figure yet. But “yet” is the operative word. People tend to focus on him at his height of power, and later his demise, without really studying exactly how he got there.

And if you do, you’ll see many similarities in the track and trajectory between Trump and Hitler. And in the rhetoric, behaviour, and outcomes.

It’s also important to point out that Hitler’s (and the Nazi party’s) popular vote share in the last free and fair elections in 1932 were 37% in July and 33% in November, so he barely had a third of the voting population’s support. And even in the election in 1933, after his Nazi forces raged a campaign of intimidation and terror (even acting as poll “monitors”), and shortly after they burned down the Reichstag, he only got 44% of the popular vote. He didn’t need 100% support, he just needed enough to gain power and access to the institutions and resources of government. Then he could work to demolish them and replace them with ones that served his aims without question or hesitance.

And guess what anachronistic system is employed for presidential elections in America that can enable someone to win the office without winning the popular vote (something Trump exploited in the 2016 election, where he got just 46% of the popular vote to Clinton’s 48%)?

As I have said in previous posts, the time to highlight a dangerous bad actor’s similarities to Hitler (and his rise) is not after he has assumed absolute power. The time, when there are legitimate parallels, is well before that.
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It really doesn't take much to see all manner of parallels some of which are more embryonic than others but nonetheless exist and could be further developed. Some are quite striking, for example the ongoing perverting and weaponisation of Christianity in the US would have made Rosenberg proud.

Something that you didn't explicitly mention but is a huge concern is the military. Last time out to some degree the military were something of a bulwark against Trump that he wasn't equipped to manipulate. This time round though I suspect it will be very high up his agenda and his advisors will be much better prepared. Anyone who thinks Trump doesn't look enviously at the oath of fealty that German soldiers swore to Hitler personally, rather than the state, is being naive in the extreme.

Worrying times indeed.
 
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Paul1970 said:
Realistically how do you think the war ends ?
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You want me to speculate in a fashion that is realistic, withought defining what realistic is. When speculation is involved, realism is to each ones impression only, never a fact.

One thing however upon which i have speculated hard since the start of the war, was that the more time would go on the more drone warfare would become prominent, to the point that it would more and more redefine modern war. From my own professional background i am acutely aware how in recent decades the mass production of cheap components that fit such end products have risen. hence i can speak with some knowledge of facts that drone production is notably of a kind where it is not so hard to reach production orders of ... millions!

There is a potential fair amount of paradigm shift that this might cause. When one thinks of a future of drone warfare to the greatest extend it could happen, then one would immagine that the most important metrics to victory are such things like technological advancement and industrial capacity. The paradigm shift is that this takes away from the importance of being superior in terms of manpower for example. Indeed, it must be extremely demoralizing for soldiers to fight nothing but drones, even if you kill it its just a cheap product noone cries, if you loose you die. There is much to say about all the features of this paradigm shift, another part besides is just that drones are very cheap which shows in the production volumes they are made, few weapons of war are indeed ever made in such proportions other than rifles and ammunition but it has shown that indeed it can defeat pretty much anything under good conditions and often its just a matter to swarm and take a 33% succes rate as "simply a succes". Perhaps Ai can be involved with it, perhaps miniaturizitaion can makes these things yet even more scary than they are, the potential power of drone warfare has indeed many scary elements to it too, immagine its use within the wrong hands.

Ukraine has said .. "claimed" that they can already produce more than a million "drones" a year, and are upscaling that production to many millions. i do not have reason to disbelieve that such a thing is possible, not at all. I do think that whoever gets a very large quantitive and/or technological drone advantage can win the war irrespective of who has more tanks or soldiers or rockets or planes, mostly because the production volumes are quite stacked against such conventional weapons.

That really puts my perspective that "on the longer term, anything can happen", the longer this war takes. it's not unreasonable to think that the west might provide Ukraine with a lot of industrial help too as to upscale production, much that you might think that perhaps they are not "doing enough". Given that within the west lies the industries that do the crucial mass production of o so many components, the kind of "cheap diplomatic trick" as to give aid and not be so associated with it would be that all the Ukrainians have to do is mount said components in a drone assembly and off it goes. By the millions yes. And what design? Well that might evolve a lot and/or fast too, so lots of possible outcomes there too.

Thus, it is too hard to tell, the way i see it and especially given that it is a long war and one that is currently moving very few it can still go every way, i do think superiority in drone warfare might be key in victory and i do think Ukraine has a fair chance to attain that dominance too.
 
daveoswald said:
All very well, but has he been found guilty of child rape, it is inconceivable and against the laws of the United State that he could run for the office of president.
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It's not. There are no laws banning convicted felons from running for president or serving as president.

Trump MAGA fans would still vote for Trump if it was their kids that he abused. It's not inconceivable that they'd still vote for him.

This is from the BBC after he was convicted in the hush money case.

Can he still run for president?​

Yes. The US Constitution sets out relatively few eligibility requirements for presidential candidates: they must be at least 35, be a “natural born” US citizen and have lived in the US for at least 14 years. There are no rules blocking candidates with criminal records.
 
TinFoilHat said:
The coup attempt is still going on. Trump appointed 'election officials' in some states will be standing by drop boxes and in polling stations to make sure people vote the right way.
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This is undoubtedly garbage, they will be monitoring that no electoral fraud is going on, also happens in in the UK, all parties are allowed to watch the count. Years of the nonsense we as a club have had to put up with have made me wise up and see through bullshit like this about everything i read online.
 
Mr Kobayashi said:
It's not. There are no laws banning convicted felons from running for president or serving as president.

Trump MAGA fans would still vote for Trump if it was their kids that he abused. It's not inconceivable that they'd still vote for him.

This is from the BBC after he was convicted in the hush money case.

Can he still run for president?​

Yes. The US Constitution sets out relatively few eligibility requirements for presidential candidates: they must be at least 35, be a “natural born” US citizen and have lived in the US for at least 14 years. There are no rules blocking candidates with criminal records.
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Again, he has not been found guilty of raping children, he would almost certainly not get the nominee for Republican presidential candidate, he would be unelectable, i loathe the narcissistic buffoon, however the past ten years of the garbage we have had to put up with as a club, have fine tuned my radar for bullshit.
 
daveoswald said:
Again, he has not been found guilty of raping children, he would almost certainly not get the nominee for Republican presidential candidate, he would be unelectable, i loathe the narcissistic buffoon, however the past ten years of the garbage we have had to put up with as a club, have fine tuned my radar for bullshit.
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You aren't even talking about Trump at this point. If you have to frame every response through Sky Blue specs maybe you have lost your objectivity.

Take them off and maybe you can see things differently.
 
Mr Kobayashi said:
You aren't even talking about Trump at this point. If you have to frame every response through Sky Blue specs maybe you have lost your objectivity.

Take them off and maybe you can see things differently.
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I was drawing an analogy (correctly in my view) remind me again how many times has Trump been found guilty of child abuse?
 
daveoswald said:
This is undoubtedly garbage, they will be monitoring that no electoral fraud is going on, also happens in in the UK, all parties are allowed to watch the count. Years of the nonsense we as a club have had to put up with have made me wise up and see through bullshit like this about everything i read online.
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To be fair, the institutions of the US at this point look mightely weak. The Onus is not "only" on trump though, we didnt get here withought decades of manipulation by both parties in in a form of power struggle against eachother that kept testing the limits and has made somewhat common that which should not ever have corrupted the system. gerrymandering is just an example, one where both parties are just kinda tearing down the rules for their own gain when they can. Trump deffinatly is a new extreme though, in fact very notably in redefining what laws even apply to him personally, just to try put every part of the system to his control by all the means he can invent. Hell if he could find dirt on any of his opponents he'd likely blackmail them than adressing it by any legal fashion heh.

Just to say, the fact that even Trump can go so far, is indicative of the weakness of such institutions like say the supreme court, atleast in what you think they ought to do or represent.

Its not that everything about it is all so new, America had weak institutions for a number of periods trough history, the amount of utter garbage decisions made prior and after the ACW from among others the Supreme court are pretty baffling to if you read on them and what they caused. The whole thing is in many ways also analogous to how the triumvers for example destroyed the inner workings of the Roman republic, which much that it was something that kinda deerved to die also speaks for "the methodology of gaining power". Undermining institutions and redefining or reshaping them is part of it.

What is more different in these last decades is the way media power is utilized and controlled and the effect it has. The role of just a single man called Ruport Murdoch, former CEO of Fox, into creating a volatile poppulist envriroment that can be used for the likes of such ambitious men is perhaps not to underestimated. No wonder that one of Trumps most early schtiks was "fake news", as a means even to drive people into a more censored echo chamber where white can be claimed to be black and Trump is the infallible hero against unquestionable evil if not "godlike" to boot, and everyone who says otherwise is part of the plot agaisnt him. To create a army of non-questioning die hard loyal followers, who are "angry beyond believe". With even people like Musk taking a stake in that game of controling the media and setting it to obvious use of propaganda under a rather cynical banner of "free speech". Trump in fact has been so empowered by media that he's well beyond the control of the GOP, it has surprised even them, its almost like fox news is actually one of the largest parties in the US.

We might need to rethink media, and what it requires to foster a society where political debate is done by people who are more politically concious and responsable, and who for that purpose recognise that we require media that is about factual news, not about false spinning narratives that can go so far as to cause turmoil in society purely on the instigation of some geriatric Australian who holds bondlike-villan sort of schemes. A daunting challenge, one we seem to be loosing for lack of being able to correctly measure the threat.
 
FlemishDuck said:
To be fair, the institutions of the US at this point look mightely weak. The Onus is not "only" on trump though, we didnt get here withought decades of manipulation by both parties in in a form of power struggle against eachother that kept testing the limits and has made somewhat common that which should not ever have corrupted the system. gerrymandering is just an example, one where both parties are just kinda tearing down the rules for their own gain when they can. Trump deffinatly is a new extreme though, in fact very notably in redefining what laws even apply to him personally, just to try put every part of the system to his control by all the means he can invent. Hell if he could find dirt on any of his opponents he'd likely blackmail them than adressing it by any legal fashion heh.

Just to say, the fact that even Trump can go so far, is indicative of the weakness of such institutions like say the supreme court, atleast in what you think they ought to do or represent.

Its not that everything about it is all so new, America had weak institutions for a number of periods trough history, the amount of utter garbage decisions made prior and after the ACW from among others the Supreme court are pretty baffling to if you read on them and what they caused. The whole thing is in many ways also analogous to how the triumvers for example destroyed the inner workings of the Roman republic, which much that it was something that kinda deerved to die also speaks for "the methodology of gaining power". Undermining institutions and redefining or reshaping them is part of it.

What is more different in these last decades is the way media power is utilized and controlled and the effect it has. The role of just a single man called Ruport Murdoch, former CEO of Fox, into creating a volatile poppulist envriroment that can be used for the likes of such ambitious men is perhaps not to underestimated. No wonder that one of Trumps most early schtiks was "fake news", as a means even to drive people into a more censored echo chamber where white can be claimed to be black and Trump is the infallible hero against unquestionable evil if not "godlike" to boot, and everyone who says otherwise is part of the plot agaisnt him. To create a army of non-questioning die hard loyal followers, who are "angry beyond believe". With even people like Musk taking a stake in that game of controling the media and setting it to obvious use of propaganda under a rather cynical banner of "free speech". Trump in fact has been so empowered by media that he's well beyond the control of the GOP, it has surprised even them, its almost like fox news is actually one of the largest parties in the US.

We might need to rethink media, and what it requires to foster a society where political debate is done by people who are more politically concious and responsable, and who for that purpose recognise that we require media that is about factual news, not about false spinning narratives that can go so far as to cause turmoil in society purely on the instigation of some geriatric Australian who holds bondlike-villan sort of schemes. A daunting challenge, one we seem to be loosing for lack of being able to correctly measure the threat.
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To be honest i couldn't care less who the people of the United States elect as their next president, it became of interest following the attempted murder of Trump, i only care about facts and truth, and if you think fox news and Murdoch's publications are biased (which they are) stick to the Guardian they will will give you all the conformation bias you desire.
 
daveoswald said:
To be honest i couldn't care less who the people of the United States elect as their next president, it became of interest following the attempted murder of Trump, i only care about facts and truth, and if you think fox news and Murdoch's publications are biased (which they are) stick to the Guardian they will will give you all the conformation bias you desire.
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Why do you think that my criticism of these media outlets makes me give any particular credibility to the Guardian? What?? Comes out of nowhere.
 
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