We have built centuries of laws, precedent, and mos maiorum, all of it built upon the fundamental belief that our leaders loved our country more than they hated their political opposition. It turns out that was stupid and naive.
Not only a Kasparov's comments always trenchant, but he's a full-throated rejection of the attitude of #bothsidesdoit. He never had a problem with the GOP until Trump, and won't have a problem with the party after Trump, if it cleans up its act. But he's not going to stand by when an American political party -- Republican or Democrat -- embraces authoritarianism. Kasparov is what an independent should be.
It was correct until now. Then the country elected a Cult Leader,. I never, ever, ever want to hear about the virtues of non-politicians again. Ever.
We've now gone from 'I am not a crook' to 'a crook is not a crook.'— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) October 4, 2019
Not exactly sure what the importance of the whistleblower complaint is now that Trump, Pence and Guiliani are all 100% admitting they did what the whistblower said and promising to do more of it.— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) October 3, 2019
Trump simultaneously - 1) Denies that such interference exists 2) Complains vociferously that the allegations are lies 3) Publicly advocates the interference that he denies 4) Expects that 100% of Republicans will accept this complete, utter nonsense The naked Emperor was the first and best gaslighter, but this guy isn't far behind. And oh, Republicans -- this crap is beyond embarrassing. Stop accepting being treated like an idiot.
Trump and Company are out in the open on this because they know that no one will stop them. Let's say Republicans grow a spine and decide to impeach and remove him from office. This will completely fracture the Republican party into two sections: Tax-cut Republicans and Trump sycophants. The Republicans believe that Trump is a necessary evil in order to keep the party together because if it's fractured, Democrats will sweep everything, so in order to remain in power they accept Trump. Trump sees this acceptance as a license to do whatever he wants. The question is: where does this stop? Trump asks for foreign countries to investigate his political enemies. What happens if that doesn't happen? How do Trump and Republicans stay in power? Do Trump or Republicans shut down polling centers? Voter intimidation? Inciting actual violence? Literal election rigging? Trump thinks he's a mafia kingpin, and not only is there no police to stop him, but he has a network dedicated to telling everyone how what he's doing isn't wrong. I'm having a hard time seeing a way out of this.
I've been thinking about this interesting statement from Putin. It can be interpreted as a threat to @realDonaldTrump that Russia can release or leak conversations that occurred between @POTUS and Putin at any time. https://t.co/FBOGL5fKXX— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) October 4, 2019 Kompromat
95% of the party accepts it because they're used to hold contradictory thoughts and not find them conflicting. Doublethink. All of those. And if it doesn't work, they will tell that the Democrats cheated and that Trump needs to stay 4, 8, 12 more years. And You are right, I don't think that we will be able to remove it, and the "neutral" factions will stay on the sidelines.
He also knows whereof he speaks, as he witnessed the fall of communism and the rise of a kleptocratic oligarchy the likes of which Trump-types the world over thrive in.
That's exactly it. The GOP is a trapped spouse. Every month, Trump pushes further, and every month the GOP rationalizes why it needs to keep this marriage together, so it accepts the ever-increasing abuse.Lord only knows what beatings the next 12 months will bring.
Absolutely. This is all entirely familiar to Kasparov. He understands Trump better than Trump understands Trump.
TBH I'm hoping that referring to a female as 'the woman' isn't enough to define one as a 'vile misogynist pig', not least because I've been referring to my better half as TLW, (for 'the little woman'), for the past 30+ years Of course, my relationship to TLW isn't the same as dth's to this lady so it's not the same thing. Nevertheless I'd call his reference to her, (as demonstrated in that specific communication), simply as 'rude' or possibly 'lacking respect', not the display of extreme pearl clutching this tweet seems to demonstrate.
Well, Hamilton (essentially) threw his support to Jefferson to stop Burr. But yeah, way too few other examples.
Let's see-- the War Democrats did okay for Lincoln, didn't they? Chester A Arthur was an American Beckett. Admiral Dewey declined to have his hat thrown in the ring. I always felt Ike was relieved at Kennedy's election, at least; "Shoe fits" and all that. McCain resisted the smear machine's characterizations of Obama. As a nation we've done fairly well at avoiding such situations, actually, with the exceptions of Burr, 1860, and the recent past?
I see things a little differently. You have GOPers who care primarily about the conservative economic agenda. It's an army chock full of generals; it's easily the preponderance of office holders. But it has very little constituency among voters. Then you have the traditional values crowd...abortion and gay rights. They're a pretty big group. Finally, you have the group that primarily is racist, i.e., Trump sycophants. We now know that's easily the largest faction among actual voters, but it's the smallest faction among prominent politicians. That's how Trump was able to so easily destroy a large field with a few grifters, sure (Carson, Fiorina) but a ton of governors and senators. Trump was the only pol representing the largest faction of voters. In retrospect, I wonder why Tom Tancredo didn't do better. Maybe because he wasn't anti-black. An interesting poli sci or history paper could be written comparing those two campaigns.
He resigned without trashing the Republicans who would have voted to remove him from office. Trump would not do that.
In this case it's a demonstration of a pattern of behavior towards women on Trump's part, and the context matters. Like if the ambassador had been male can you imagine him referring to him merely as "the man" in a derogatory tone? In the comments somebody makes the same point comparing Sherlock Holmes' referring to Irene Adler at "the woman" but as a term of utmost respect.
From Volker's opening statement yesterday. This dude is naive, if i want to be generous, if not totally disingenuous. The dots can be easily connected from his remarks. "In addition, I have known former Vice President Biden for 24 years, and the suggestion that he would be influenced in his duties as Vice President by money for his son simply has no credibility to me. I know him as a man of integrity and dedication to our country." https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6454114/Volker-Prepared-Remarks.pdf