Right-- their taxes are down because their profits are down, because they are hiring coal miners and steelworkers and building cars in Keokuk again for the good of all of us! Thanks to their sacrifice, America's gonna be great again!
Yup. And it wasn't just Republicans who ignored it. A lot of independents and a lot of left-of-center voters downplayed his manifest unfitness. There was a myopia among many voters, who seemed to consider themselves as being smart & sophisticated for overlooking "distractions" about his character. He's a monster. It was obvious long before the election.
He’s the definition of an anti-Christ, yet Christians gladly wanted him in power. “He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior. When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes.” Daniel 8:25
It's been interesting to me how many conservatives and independents who claim never to have voted for him, nevertheless accept or minimise him We have seen that around here as well. They are quicker to attack dems that trump
Their political beliefs rest upon the foundation that there is no meaningful difference between Republicans and Democrats. Trump cannot be admitted, because he destroys that foundation.
OR! Could be that there are eleventy billion hourly attacks (many legitimate) on Trump, and "me too" -ing all day long is...well...Twitterish.
I knew you would say this - but it is nevertheless curious, especially if Trump does end up delivering authoritarianism in the US
I agree if we include a lot of left-leaning/Dem-voting (when they vote at all) independents in that mix.
That's fair, but OTOH there are TYT/Justice Dems types who still hold on to the notion that Trump was an economic populist who got corrupted by the "establishment" once he got in office. Those are the people I was thinking of in particular.
He already has. There's my Monday hot take. He hasn't fully institutionalized it yet, nor successfully neutered all meaningful opposition. He may yet get voted out of power in 2020, and the GOP may suffer such a complete defeat that the long-overdue job of rebuilding it as a responsible center-right party from the ground up might finally begin. Where we go from here isn't yet set. But authoritarianism isn't a binary proposition. Some of the tools (an un-democratic constitutional system, too much power vested in the executive branch, erosion of respect for democratic norms and institutions, a media environment conducive to populist demagoguery, etc.) were already in place. Mitch McConnell was already hard-wired for this moment. Trump's election began the march across the Rubicon. We can still see the shoreline and we might make it back. But make no mistake, we're in the early stages of the same sort of "illiberal democracy" that many other states are experiencing during this age of populist nationalism.
Can't tell if you're being serious? A lot of anti-anti-Trump leftists seem to get a lot of their worldview from The Young Turks. It's CNN for the "WE MUST DEFEAT THE CORRUPT DNC!!!!" crowd.
Oh, hah! In a way, I was right. No, I just completely spaced on that particular acronym. I was thinking "TRT".
I agree Even if he gets the boot - the door has been opened, and someone more competent will crack on - especially with the GOP supporting one party rule
That's the immediate danger. More long-term; many lines have been crossed and institutional norms violated. We've also found that many citizens of the Republic are actually authoritarians at heart. Statistically speaking, that was always true but now "the system" has given some of them what they want--and for the time being their political enablers have been rewarded with immense power. This time it's socially reactionary white racists in the GOP. But I see glimpses of latent authoritarianism in political rhetoric coming from others. There are populists on the Left who are so deeply convinced of their "rightness" that they too are likely to see democracy and legislative process as unnecessarily impure means to fully-justified ends. The Democratic party in it's current form is probably too pluralistic to go full-McConnell on behalf of a left-wing Trump but a Huey Long style left-wing demagogue could still do some damage in the future. To abuse a tired, overworked trope--we've now opened the Pandora's Box. America will survive in some form but we'll never quite be the same.
1994: "Your guilty conscience may force you to vote Democratic, but deep down inside, you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalise criminals and rule you like a king!"
Speaking of how Trump is destroying America...since we're all about TPM now.' https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/electoral-subversion-is-about-a-lot-more-than-fec-violations "President Trump’s instantly notorious interview with George Stephanopoulos in which he expressed openness to receiving foreign government assistance in the 2020 presidential election sparked a flurry of pushback and denunciations. The Chair of the FEC released a statement rebuking the President. Various lawyers noted laws prohibiting candidates from accepting things of value from foreign nationals. But many of the criticisms themselves illustrate more than anything the impact almost three years of Republican gaslighting, goal post moving and obfuscation has had on the public debate in this country. The fact that accepting assistance from a foreign government – which President Trump wants to establish as the new norm – might technically be construed as a campaign finance violation is close to the least relevant thing about what happened in the 2016 election. This should also remind us that most the scandal of the 2016 election and what amounts to the permanent scandal of the Trump presidency involves wrongdoing and misrule that is simply not captured by our statutory law. They are attacks on the nature of a civic republican government and principles embedded throughout the federal constitution." My emphasis.
If you say so, Mitch! McConnell calls granting statehood to D.C. and Puerto Rico, “full bore socialism.” pic.twitter.com/LXi71EMtDV— Resistbot is on Threads, Mastodon & Bluesky (@resistbot) June 17, 2019
Paging Frau Merkel...Got any Deutschebank records the DNC might want to see? Hey, Chiner, If you have any hacks on 432 GOP Congressional candidates Im sure the media would reward you for handing it all out. AS for Mitch...Do we really need two Dakotas? Ill bet Colorado could absorb Wyoming easily. Washington State and Idaho are a perfect consolidation. No socialism at all there.
So perhaps we should not give too much power to 1. the Federal government and 2. the Executive branch. But I doubt Democrats would want to change that power dynamic. So the set up will remain there for future Presidents to abuse.
Republicans have drained the meaning right out of the word "socialism." Mitch might as well as said "full bore stinkypoo," or "full bore pishposh," for all the content that exists in the Republican use of "socialism."
That's the problem here. Stanger pointed to it earlier about appointing justices. It's going to take an extraordinary and popular person, like George Washington, to become President and fix this mess by voluntarily pushing to reduce Executive power and sign laws passed by Congress to do so. No idea how that may happen or who that could be.