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President Trump President Trump

05-01-2017 , 12:53 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by microbet
The most democratic nation on earth is majority Muslim.
Yes and I here they have elections coming up in 2046.
05-01-2017 , 12:57 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by mongidig
Yes and I here they have elections coming up in 2046.
They just had an election for the highest representative and they have regular voting for governance and choosing delegates, not just electing representatives.
05-01-2017 , 01:17 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by mongidig
Yes and I here they have elections coming up in 2046.
It might be a good idea to try having any idea whatsoever what microbet is talking about before responding.

Or did you just want to make a bigoted joke that because they're Muslim, that must mean they won't have elections for another 30 years? Chez, can we get a ruling on whether mongidig's post passes the PC test?
05-01-2017 , 01:27 PM
This guy isn't so tough. He's confronted with a direct question and he folds faster than a maid at Trump Tower.


https://twitter.com/MikeLevinCA/stat...63023608053760

So weak. We need a President who can answer direct questions.
05-01-2017 , 01:29 PM
You need a win first homie.
05-01-2017 , 01:34 PM
Historian Timothy Snyder: “It’s pretty much inevitable” that Trump will try to stage a coup and overthrow democracy
http://linkis.com/www.salon.com/2017/0/aD9L9
Quote:
One of the problems with American discourse is that we just assume everybody is a friendly democratic parliamentarian pluralist until proven otherwise. And then even when it’s proven otherwise we don’t have any vocabulary for it. He’s a “dictator.” He’s an “authoritarian.” He’s “Hitler.” We just toss these words around.

The pushback that you are talking about is 95 percent bad. Americans do not want to think that there is an alternative to what we have. Therefore, as soon as you say “fascism” or whatever it might be, then the American response is to say “no” because we lack the categories that allow us to think outside of the box that we are no longer in.

Is this a function of American exceptionalism?

Yes, it is. We made a move towards intellectual isolationism in a world where no kind of isolationism is possible. The fact that democracies usually fail is a rule which can’t apply to us. If you examine American society, there are high points and low points. But there is certainly nothing which puts us in a different category than other people who have failed, whether it’s historically or whether it’s now.

I don’t want to dodge your question about whether Trump is a fascist or not. As I see it, there are certainly elements of his approach which are fascistic. The straight-on confrontation with the truth is at the center of the fascist worldview. The attempt to undo the Enlightenment as a way to undo institutions, that is fascism.

Whether he realizes it or not is a different question, but that’s what fascists did. They said, “Don’t worry about the facts; don’t worry about logic. Think instead in terms of mystical unities and direct connections between the mystical leader and the people.” That’s fascism. Whether we see it or not, whether we like it or not, whether we forget, that is fascism.

Another thing that’s clearly fascist about Trump were the rallies. The way that he used the language, the blunt repetitions, the naming of the enemies, the physical removal of opponents from rallies, that was really, without exaggeration, just like the 1920s and the 1930s.

And Mr. [Steve] Bannon’s preoccupation with the 1930s and his kind of wishful reclamation of Italian and other fascists speaks for itself.

How did the news media and others get this so wrong? Why did they underestimate the threat posed by Donald Trump and his movement?

What we ended up with, from Bill Clinton onward, is a status quo party and an “undo the system” party, where the Democrats became the status quo party and the Republicans became the “undo the system” party. In that constellation it’s very hard to think of change because one party is in favor of things being the way they are, just slightly better, and the other party has this big idea of undoing everything, although it’s unclear what that really means in practice. So no one is actually articulating how you address the problems of the day, the greatest of which would be inequality. When neither party is creative, then it’s hard for scholars to get their ideas into meaningful circulation.

Why is Trump not being held accountable for all of his failures, scandals and incompetence?

Mr. Trump is primarily a television personality. As such, he is judged by that standard. This means that a scandal does not call forth a response; it calls forth the desire for a bigger scandal. It just whets the appetite for a bigger scandal because a television serial has to work on that logic. It’s almost as though he has to produce these outrageous things because what else would he be doing?

I think another part of it has to do with attention span. It’s not so much a lack of outrage; people are in fact outraged. But in order for a scandal to have political logic, the outrage has to be followed by the research. It has to be followed by the investigation. It has to be followed by an official finding.

In your book you discuss the idea that Donald Trump will have his own version of Hitler’s Reichstag fire to expand his power and take full control of the government by declaring a state of emergency. How do you think that would play out?

Let me make just two points. The first is that I think it’s pretty much inevitable that they will try. The reason I think that is that the conventional ways of being popular are not working out for them. The conventional way to be popular or to be legitimate in this country is to have some policies, to grow your popularity ratings and to win some elections. I don’t think 2018 is looking very good for the Republicans along those conventional lines — not just because the president is historically unpopular. It’s also because neither the White House nor Congress have any policies which the majority of the public like.

This means they could be seduced by the notion of getting into a new rhythm of politics, one that does not depend upon popular policies and electoral cycles.

Whether it works or not depends upon whether when something terrible happens to this country, we are aware that the main significance of it is whether or not we are going to be more or less free citizens in the future.

My gut feeling is that Trump and his administration will try and that it won’t work. Not so much because we are so great but because we have a little bit of time to prepare. I also think that there are enough people and enough agencies of the government who have also thought about this and would not necessarily go along.
05-01-2017 , 01:35 PM
Will. 1 day timeout for breaking the PC rules. Please don't post in the president trump thread or in any other thread on the same topic for 1 day please.
05-01-2017 , 01:39 PM
Trump cutting off an interview because he can't back up his own claims is amazing.

On a similar note, here's more evidence that Trump is just a senile racist old grandpa: Trump claims Andrew Jackson was around during the Civil War, wonders why it happened and why people couldn't have just worked it out

Who knew things were so complex?
[x] healthcare
[x] trade
[x] the Civil War
05-01-2017 , 01:48 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by batair
I can understand my response to the lol getting deleted but my other post was dead on. White supremacists are a threat and so are those who use apologetics for them. ugg
I've reread it and restored it. It's still marginal and would probably be deleted if reported but I did mistake it as you saying something else.
05-01-2017 , 02:04 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by goofyballer
It might be a good idea to try having any idea whatsoever what microbet is talking about before responding.

Or did you just want to make a bigoted joke that because they're Muslim, that must mean they won't have elections for another 30 years? Chez, can we get a ruling on whether mongidig's post passes the PC test?
^ hey chez this was an earnest question
05-01-2017 , 02:14 PM
I'm really not sure. What country is beign talked about and was there any relevance to the year 2046?
05-01-2017 , 02:24 PM
Well, ask yourself: does mongidig know what country is being talked about? microbet made a thread about it in alpha but mongidig doesn't (software probably doesn't even allow him to if he's exiled?) read that forum.

So, if mongidig doesn't even know what country we're talking about, doesn't that tell you a lot about the intentions of his post?
05-01-2017 , 02:26 PM
Unrelated: In 2009, lawyer representing investors in a Trump property that went bankrupt received a phone call threatening his wife and children "if you keep ****ing with Mr. Trump". (2+2 bleeps the link, replace **** with you know what)

The phone call was made from a pay phone across the street from where Donald Trump was filming The Late Show w/ David Letterman that same day.
05-01-2017 , 02:44 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by goofyballer
Well, ask yourself: does mongidig know what country is being talked about? microbet made a thread about it in alpha but mongidig doesn't (software probably doesn't even allow him to if he's exiled?) read that forum.

So, if mongidig doesn't even know what country we're talking about, doesn't that tell you a lot about the intentions of his post?
You're probably right. More so because 2046 sounds so unlikely in any system than because I can tell if it's come up before and they know what country they're discussing.

Mongidig - was there any relevance to 2046?

Everyone - no more on this here please. Report these sorts of concerns (or bring up in the mod thread if you're unsure) rather than in content threads please

Last edited by chezlaw; 05-01-2017 at 02:50 PM.
05-01-2017 , 03:49 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezlaw
I'm really not sure. What country is beign talked about and was there any relevance to the year 2046?
It's Rojava and this wouldn't even be a tough Jeopardy question. 2046 had no significance, just a point in the distant future because quite obviously a bunch of backwards browns from the middle east wouldn't have Western Democracy Values(TM).
05-01-2017 , 08:09 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezlaw
You're probably right. More so because 2046 sounds so unlikely in any system than because I can tell if it's come up before and they know what country they're discussing.

Mongidig - was there any relevance to 2046?

Everyone - no more on this here please. Report these sorts of concerns (or bring up in the mod thread if you're unsure) rather than in content threads please
That was a typo lol! I meant to type 2016. We are talking about Rojava right?
05-01-2017 , 09:40 PM
Multiple stabbing victims at UT Austin today, with one murder. Trumpmerica
05-01-2017 , 09:42 PM
Quote:
2046
2042?

05-01-2017 , 11:26 PM
https://www.buzzfeed.com/briannasack...Km#.ed1NNb31gB

Police shoot a 15 year old passenger of a car. They claim the car was moving towards them. This is what the police always claim under such circumstances and it's probably always a lie. In this case I'll give the department credit for not losing the dash cam footing that proved the car was driving away from the officers. At this point the officer is on administrative leave for executing a child.

TrumpAmerica
05-01-2017 , 11:49 PM
Cant count how many times i ran form cops when i was young. Lucky i was white...
05-01-2017 , 11:55 PM
While I can count them myself, same sentiment. (Insert whatever Louis CK bit here)
05-02-2017 , 02:40 AM
Who wore it better: mongidig pretending he knew what Rojava was before 5ive's post (while at the same time pretending to be a time traveler from some time before 2016), or Trump pretending he knew Andrew Jackson's lifespan when he made his incredibly dumb comments today?

05-02-2017 , 02:43 AM
That may be my favorite Trump tweet so far in 2017.
05-02-2017 , 09:28 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by goofyballer
White gunman attacks UC San Diego pool party, shooting 8 black and Hispanic victims

It's amazing how reality has the funniest way of clowning all over your awful posts
You posted this trying to claim this was a hate crime. It sounds like the police chief disagrees with you.

"Ms Zimmerman, during a press conference, later said that the shooter was motivated by a breakup with a girlfriend and not motivated by race."

"Police believe that Mr Selis lived in the complex. Before firing on the partygoers, a friend of the suspect reportedly offered him something to eat and drink at the party."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/police-sh...065300609.html

I am not trying to claim there is no such thing as white on black hate crime. There obviously is, as there is with every race against every other race, and it is a serious problem we face as a country.
05-02-2017 , 09:32 AM
This says a lot, but Trump's tweet is much more lame than mongidig's post.

      
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