The Trump Thread: Pro? Con? Who cares?

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  • August 9, 2020 at 11:08 am #119049
    Avatar photoBilly_T
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    zn wrote:

    Tom Nichols@RadioFreeTom
    Trump explaining the danger of stock prices, saying everyone owns stocks. The amazing thing about this is that a big chunk of his base, which does not own stocks, is probably nodding along as if they do,

    Was thinking the same thing. Last time I checked — but haven’t rechecked this recently — the richest 1% holds more than half the stocks. And, of course, the richest three Americans hold more wealth than the bottom 50% of the country combined . . . (Bezos, Gates and Buffet until recently. I think Zuckerberg has taken Buffet’s place).

    Trump’s voters likely don’t know these things — or they don’t care, cuz they’re certain they’ll be in that 1% soon enough.

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Avatar photoBilly_T.
    August 10, 2020 at 12:46 am #119096
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    August 10, 2020 at 10:24 pm #119110
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    August 13, 2020 at 8:07 am #119213
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    Saw the title and i thot it was an Onion article.

    Remember when the Onion used to seem surreal?

    w
    v
    ==========================
    trump:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/12/us-shower-pressure-trump-hair-water
    US proposes change to shower rules after Trump’s hair-washing moan

    President believes shower water does not flow fast enough
    ‘My hair … I don’t know about you, but it has to be perfect’

    The US president’s hair-washing complaints on Wednesday prompted the government to propose an easing of shower pressure standards.

    The Trump administration proposed rule changes that would allow shower heads to boost water pressure, after Donald Trump repeatedly complained that bathroom fixtures do not work to his liking.

    The Department of Energy plan followed comments from Trump last month at a White House event on rolling back regulations. He said he believed water does not come out fast enough from fixtures.

    “So what do you do? You just stand there longer or you take a shower longer? Because my hair – I don’t know about you, but it has to be perfect,” he said.

    Last December, Trump said environmental regulators were looking at sinks, faucets and toilets to revise rules meant to conserve water and fuel that heats it.

    “People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once,” Trump told a meeting of small business leaders at the White House.

    Consumer groups decried the plan, saying current rules saved consumers money by conserving water and fuel.

    The proposal would effectively allow shower fixtures to include multiple shower heads that would get around the 2.5 gallon per minute standard Congress set in 1992, when Trump’s fellow Republican George HW Bush was president.

    The energy department also proposed easier standards on washing machines. The Trump administration says its regulatory rollbacks save average American households $3,100 a year. But conservationists say easing bathroom fixture standards could boost energy and water costs.

    It was uncertain whether the plan would be finalized. Trump is campaigning for reelection and trails in opinion polls ahead of the vote on 3 November. If he wins and the proposal advances it could also face court battles.

    August 14, 2020 at 12:02 am #119251
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    August 14, 2020 at 12:02 am #119252
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    August 14, 2020 at 10:36 pm #119298
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    Justin Fenton@justin_fenton
    I keep thinking about Trump saying on live TV that post office funding was being withheld to thwart mail-in voting during a pandemic. It’s like when a movie villain unnecessarily lays out his plot

    August 15, 2020 at 12:57 am #119321
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    August 15, 2020 at 9:30 am #119334
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    August 15, 2020 at 11:12 am #119345
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    August 16, 2020 at 7:59 pm #119431
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    August 17, 2020 at 1:11 pm #119451
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    August 17, 2020 at 4:05 pm #119467
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    Alexandra Erin@AlexandraErin
    A key thing to understand about Trump’s declaration that “Only absentee ballots are acceptable!” is that the phrase “absentee ballot” doesn’t have a clear, coast-to-coast, legally agreed upon meaning, and this is by design.

    His demand is: let me invalidate votes I don’t like.

    The purpose of most of Trump’s arguments and much of his activity is to destroy the meaning of things, the concept of meanings. “Fake news” when it started to become a thing was a specific thing, and it was “fake news sites” – lookalike sites designed to mimic news orgs.

    The fake news sites in question were a combination of clickbait for money and lulz and deliberate disinfo/misinfo sites, but like, for instance something like RT or Breitbart or OANN wasn’t what the experts were warning about, even as they’re used for blatant propaganda.

    But the fake news in question was useful to Trump… some of the mercantile purveyors admitted they had set up both conservative and progressive versions but only really scored meaningful hits on the right-wing side, and of course the foreign agents favored him.

    So for him to destroy the meaning of “fake news” was a one-two, both offense and defense. He turned urgent warnings from media specialists and information scientists into partisan echo chamber noise, and also gained a label to discredit things he doesn’t like.

    And it is very much, very blatantly, not that he has created a new definition of fake news. If you asked him to define it, he’d name examples. He has rendered the phrase meaningless; it’s something he sticks on stuff he doesn’t like.

    Everybody pointing out that Florida does not have a provision for absentee ballots and when the term is used in Florida it is in reference to mail-in ballots that can be requested by anyone and have no more rigorous verification than any other mail-in ballot (which, is enough!)

    And this is a good thing to point out, but it’s not that Trump is getting his facts wrong or even that he’s just lying about in the conventional sense of trying to fool us into thinking that Florida has a formal absentee ballot that it doesn’t.

    He is attacking the meaning.

    I mean the way they think, the way they approach things, the ways they believe the world works and the things they think of other people and of themselves.

    Trump lives in a world where it makes sense for you to be out to get everyone because everyone’s out to get you. Rob the other person before they rob you.

    In this world, words don’t have meanings, they have effects. Words with good effects, you put on yourself and your stuff. Words with bad effects, you put on everybody else.

    Look at the way he talks about anything: we’re living very happily, we’re doing very well. Those are good words. He means *nothing* by them. The GOP health care plan that doesn’t exist is always going to be very great health care with very low cost. No plan? Doesn’t matter.

    The plan doesn’t have to exist for him to say that it’s very great, that people will be happy, to put any good or useful label on it. The only thing that stops him from claiming he’s offering universal healthcare all the time is that he knows his side sees that as bad.

    Someone pointed out to me a while back is that when he seems like he’s struggling? He’ll just repeat the word “strong” or “strongly”, in places it doesn’t quite fit and sometimes to the exclusion of other modifiers or superlatives.

    Because strong = good.

    So I think it’s become sort of a default for him, the way “bad” has. He’ll just cut right to the point. Put the good label on the things you want, put the bad label on the things you don’t like. That’s it.

    There was some laughter when early on in his term, he and his mouthpieces like Spicer just outright said various versions of “Well, the [news/polls/whatever] are real when they’re good, and fake when they’re bad.”

    But it’s not a joke. That’s the world he lives in.

    And bit by bit, he’s dragging everybody else into that world with him. A world devoid of meaning and where the truth not only lacks power but can’t even be proven to exist.

    “Only Absentee Ballots acceptable!” means count the votes he wants to count and discredit the rest.

    August 20, 2020 at 11:22 am #119691
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    August 20, 2020 at 11:22 am #119692
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    August 20, 2020 at 12:32 pm #119705
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    zn wrote:

    !!! Trump is told that QAnon believes he’s saving the world from a secret satanic cult of cannibals and pedophiles. He says, “Well, I haven’t heard that. But uh, is that supposed to be a bad thing? Or a good thing? If I can help save the world from problems…”

    — Daniel Dale

    I saw that, and several thoughts crossed my mind.

    1. If hearing the other political party accuse the Dems of being satan-worshipping, pedophile cannibals isn’t enough to get them to take off the gloves, nothing will.

    Sheesus, please stop with the Marquis of Queensbury rules and go for the jugular!! This is all out war. Stop bringing white papers to gun fights!

    2. We have never had a president so immersed in paranoid, lunatic asylum nonsense, or one who openly courts and supports this, and it’s obviously dangerous. Trump’s own FBI considers QAnon to be “domestic terrorists.” Not to mention, this moron in chief has the nuclear codes.

    The Dems need to call out Trump and the entire GOP for their extremism, fanaticism, endless lies and fascism.

    3. The Media (and the Dems) need to retire the term “conspiracy theory” or “conspiracy theorist.” Science and Math have theories and theorists. The Humanities have theories and theorists. Don’t give this QAnon shit the remotest sounding legitimacy by using those words. Call it what it is:

    Bat-shit crazy talk. The paranoid, lunatic fringe. etc.

    It’s adherents shouldn’t get one iota of “tolerance.” They need institutional supervision, not empathy.

    August 20, 2020 at 4:52 pm #119717
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    August 20, 2020 at 11:30 pm #119723
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    Jason Cole@JasonCole62
    “If you want a vision of your life under a Biden presidency, imagine the smoldering ruins of Minneapolis, the violent anarchy of Portland and the bloodstained sidewalks of Chicago,” Trump said.

    You mean, the stuff happening in the current presidency.

    August 21, 2020 at 8:42 am #119735
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    August 23, 2020 at 3:12 pm #119871
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    August 25, 2020 at 8:38 am #119979
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    August 25, 2020 at 11:11 am #119995
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    August 28, 2020 at 9:18 am #120108
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    August 28, 2020 at 10:24 am #120110
    Avatar photoBilly_T
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    zn wrote:

    Hell of a thing to watch CNN’s fact-check the cascade of lies from Trump’s speech.

    — Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy)

    I fear it may work. He directly and indirectly broke the law, using the backdrop of the White House for his campaign/convention, but since nothing he does seems to matter, and he almost never pays any price for it, it will likely give him a bounce in the polls.

    And all of those people squished together, mostly without masks? Reports are that only the people in the first few rows were tested for Covid. But I’m skeptical of that. Sounds like White House propaganda to me.

    My guess is everyone was tested. They wanted to present an image of America no longer beset by this plague, and the Glorious Leader who made that happen. Unless everyone around Trump is as psychotic as he is, I don’t think they’d risk another Tulsa-like super-spreader event. But, who knows? This isn’t our grandparents’ Twilight Zone. It’s from another dimension altogether.

    And, yeah, Trump is the all-time King of Lies. And it’s not close.

    August 28, 2020 at 11:52 am #120113
    Avatar photoZooey
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    Billy_T wrote:

    I fear it may work. He directly and indirectly broke the law, using the backdrop of the White House for his campaign/convention, but since nothing he does seems to matter, and he almost never pays any price for it, it will likely give him a bounce in the polls.

    And all of those people squished together, mostly without masks? Reports are that only the people in the first few rows were tested for Covid. But I’m skeptical of that. Sounds like White House propaganda to me.

    My guess is everyone was tested. They wanted to present an image of America no longer beset by this plague, and the Glorious Leader who made that happen. Unless everyone around Trump is as psychotic as he is, I don’t think they’d risk another Tulsa-like super-spreader event. But, who knows? This isn’t our grandparents’ Twilight Zone. It’s from another dimension altogether.

    And, yeah, Trump is the all-time King of Lies. And it’s not close.

    Trump may win, but this photo op isn’t going to be a difference-maker. I have never seen any studies on it, but I have a hunch that the majority of people who watch conventions are politically active people who already have their minds made up. Casual observers may have reactions to the photos and video highlights of these things, but their reactions to this will be buried by several more visceral layers before November. And…frankly…it’s hard to imagine that there really are very many Likely Voters who haven’t already made up their minds. It’s about voter turnout…and whose votes get counted.

    If he wins, it will be because of voter suppression.

    August 28, 2020 at 1:27 pm #120114
    Avatar photoBilly_T
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    Zooey wrote:

    Trump may win, but this photo op isn’t going to be a difference-maker. I have never seen any studies on it, but I have a hunch that the majority of people who watch conventions are politically active people who already have their minds made up. Casual observers may have reactions to the photos and video highlights of these things, but their reactions to this will be buried by several more visceral layers before November. And…frankly…it’s hard to imagine that there really are very many Likely Voters who haven’t already made up their minds. It’s about voter turnout…and whose votes get counted.

    If he wins, it will be because of voter suppression.

    I’m pretty much on the same page with ya on all of that. But I do think the Photo Op stuff helps at the margins. And Trump isn’t relying on just any one thing. His desperation, combined with the immense assets at his disposal, mean he’s going to attack every single pressure point available.

    Ultimately, yeah, it’s gonna be the voter suppression. And that’s the hub of his strategy to win, no doubt. But the GOP, Trump and their donors are going full-on kitchen sink, and I fear that too many Americans have recurrent amnesia.

    Amnesia: I’m likely preaching to the choir, but can you think of any other politician in American history who has managed to avoid paying for his/her crimes to this extent? I can’t. Just the stuff we know about so far — which is likely the proverbial tip of the iceberg — would have meant jail-time for 99% of the rest of humanity, and at least impeachment and removal for the other 0.99%

    I’m light years beyond being baffled that he has even 1% approval. It continues to hover in the 40s.

    In a sane land, his disapproval numbers would be more than 99%. Even his own party would have rejected him after all the death and destruction on his hands. And he came into office as a truly odious human being, a serial sexual predator, liar, conartist, grifter, etc. etc.

    Again . . . I need to check out Portugal as soon as we can travel again:

    August 28, 2020 at 8:40 pm #120120
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    Billy_T wrote:

    <
    ….In a sane land, his disapproval numbers would be more than 99%. Even his own party would have rejected him after all the death and destruction on his hands. And he came into office as a truly odious human being, a serial sexual predator, liar, conartist, grifter, etc. etc….>

    ============

    Well, like with Football, its never just about how the One team played. Its about how the other team played, too. And part of the explanation for how we got trump — has nothing to do with Trump. It has to do with the Corporate-Democrats and their coronation of Hillary Clinton. Etc, and so forth.

    Trump rode in on a Perfect Shit-Storm.

    He’ll get the same votes this time. But can the Democrats do better? In a normal election year, one would think almost-certainly. But this is a Covid year. And a Voter-Suppression Year the likes of which we’ve never seen.

    74 Days till the Election.

    w
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    August 28, 2020 at 10:00 pm #120127
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    WV,

    Will respond later to your points. Great analogy via the two teams. But wanted to ask you something about Chomsky, and didn’t know if it warranted a separate thread. Perhaps when I finish the book:

    I’m currently reading Chomsky’s On Anarchism, and like most of it a lot. Right now, I’m in the section about the Spanish Civil War, and while I love learning more anarchist history, NC is kinda getting into the academic weeds a bit. Liked the earlier parts a lot more. Anyway . . .

    Question for you: It’s an ebook, and relatively short, and I noticed another book by him with the same title, but it’s twice the size, and from a different year. Do you know if it’s one book or two, with one perhaps abridged? He’s written so many, I’m wondering if publishers have repackaged them somehow.

    Quick and dirty comment: I wish America had a serious, viable left-anarchist wing/movement/school, or whatever one might want to call them. Libertarian socialist, libertarian communist, anarchist-socialist, etc. etc. That’s where my heart is, pretty much, within the broader socialist tradition. Non-violent, radical egalitarian (small “d”) democrat, flattening them thar pyramids to the degree humanly possible. I just think they get most things right. Not everything, cuz that’s impossible. No person, group, or philosophy can ever do that. But I think they do better than any other “school.” etc. etc.

    Hope all is well.

    August 29, 2020 at 10:19 am #120138
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    August 31, 2020 at 1:51 pm #120229
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