Donald J Trump, your thoughts on his Presidency

[LGR4GM]

Whenever I want to understand Trump I play a little game. What's the worst reason for him doing what he does and saying what he says. Then I ask myself if that fits what he does and what he says. 

 

[LGR4GM]

Oh goody, we have reached the propaganda stage. The CDC is now just a cog in Trump's disinformation initiative so he can feel good about himself and attempt to win re-election. Wonder when the goostepping will start or has it already?

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/reopening-schools.html

Quote

 

As families and policymakers make decisions about their children returning to school, it is important to consider the full spectrum of benefits and risks of both in-person and virtual learning options.  Parents are understandably concerned about the safety of their children at school in the wake of COVID-19.  The best available evidence indicates if children become infected, they are far less likely to suffer severe symptoms.^[1],[2],[3] Death rates among school-aged children are much lower than among adults.  At the same time, the harms attributed to closed schools on the social, emotional, and behavioral health, economic well-being, and academic achievement of children, in both the short- and long-term, are well-known and significant.  Further, the lack of in-person educational options disproportionately harms low-income and minority children and those living with disabilities.  These students are far less likely to have access to private instruction and care and far more likely to rely on key school-supported resources like food programs, special education services, counseling, and after-school programs to meet basic developmental needs.^[4]

Aside from a child’s home, no other setting has more influence on a child’s health and well-being than their school.  The in-person school environment does the following:

• provides educational instruction;
• supports the development of social and emotional skills;
• creates a safe environment for learning;
• addresses nutritional needs; and
• facilitates physical activity.

This paper discusses each of these critical functions, following a brief summary of current studies regarding COVID-19 and children.

 

[darksabre]

The focus on death rates continues to be a massive misdirection. The death rate isn't really the concern here at all, of course. We've known for a while that young people are less likely to have it affect them.

The problem is that sticking a bunch of kids in a school means spreading it, probably asymptomatically, inside, and then outside, the walls of the school. You know...to parents, grandparents, other siblings, etc.

So sure, the school children might not die, but mom and dad might. Sounds good.

[SABRES 0311]

Any thoughts on the EO allowing drug importation? I’m not an expert but my initial thought is it creates competition which maybe means lower prices.

[drnkirishone]

In theory I think it would. But considering the amount of money pharmaceuticals puts into lobbying I have doubts on the effectiveness of any EO issued and that is without attaching my bias against our dear stable leader

[Weave]

2 hours ago, SABRES 0311 said:

Any thoughts on the EO allowing drug importation? I’m not an expert but my initial thought is it creates competition which maybe means lower prices.

I need to read up on this.  I'd like to hope that there wasn't profiteering from someone behind this.  This sort of thing has sure been fought hard against in the past.

[Weave]

Interesting, but fairly long article in the Atlantic.

History will judge the complicit

Quote

In English, the word collaborator has a double meaning. A colleague can be described as a collaborator in a neutral or positive sense. But the other definition of collaborator, relevant here, is different: someone who works with the enemy, with the occupying power, with the dictatorial regime. In this negative sense, collaborator is closely related to another set of words: collusion, complicity, connivance. This negative meaning gained currency during the Second World War, when it was widely used to describe Europeans who cooperated with Nazi occupiers. At base, the ugly meaning of collaborator carries an implication of treason: betrayal of one’s nation, of one’s ideology, of one’s morality, of one’s values.

1940's France collaborators (the thought process seems eerily similar, methinks)

Quote

many of those who became ideological collaborators were landowners and aristocrats, “the cream of the top of the civil service, of the armed forces, of the business community,” people who perceived themselves as part of a natural ruling class that had been unfairly deprived of power under the left-wing governments of France in the 1930s. Equally motivated to collaborate were their polar opposites, the “social misfits and political deviants” who would, in the normal course of events, never have made successful careers of any kind. What brought these groups together was a common conclusion that, whatever they had thought about Germany before June 1940, their political and personal futures would now be improved by aligning themselves with the occupiers.

The story of Lindsey Graham is so disappointing, especially in contrast to Mitt Romney.
 

Quote

 

A glance at their biographies would not have led many to predict what happened next. On paper, Graham would have seemed, in 2016, like the man with deeper ties to the military, to the rule of law, and to an old-fashioned idea of American patriotism and American responsibility in the world. Romney, by contrast, with his shifts between the center and the right, with his multiple careers in business and politics, would have seemed less deeply attached to those same old-fashioned patriotic ideals. Most of us register soldiers as loyal patriots, and management consultants as self-interested. We assume people from small towns in South Carolina are more likely to resist political pressure than people who have lived in many places. Intuitively, we think that loyalty to a particular place implies loyalty to a set of values.

But in this case the clichés were wrong. It was Graham who made excuses for Trump’s abuse of power. It was Graham—a JAG Corps lawyer—who downplayed the evidence that the president had attempted to manipulate foreign courts and blackmail a foreign leader into launching a phony investigation into a political rival. It was Graham who abandoned his own stated support for bipartisanship and instead pushed for a hyperpartisan Senate Judiciary Committee investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden’s son. It was Graham who played golf with Trump, who made excuses for him on television, who supported the president even as he slowly destroyed the American alliances—with Europeans, with the Kurds—that Graham had defended all his life. By contrast, it was Romney who, in February, became the only Republican senator to break ranks with his colleagues, voting to impeach the president. “Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office,” he said, is “perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine.”

 

Quote

To the American reader, references to Vichy France, East Germany, fascists, and Communists may seem over-the-top, even ludicrous. But dig a little deeper, and the analogy makes sense. The point is not to compare Trump to Hitler or Stalin; the point is to compare the experiences of high-ranking members of the American Republican Party, especially those who work most closely with the White House, to the experiences of Frenchmen in 1940, or of East Germans in 1945, or of Czesław Miłosz in 1947. These are experiences of people who are forced to accept an alien ideology or a set of values that are in sharp conflict with their own.

Quote

Not even Trump’s supporters can contest this analogy, because the imposition of an alien ideology is precisely what he was calling for all along. Trump’s first statement as president, his inaugural address, was an unprecedented assault on American democracy and American values. Remember: He described America’s capital city, America’s government, America’s congressmen and senators—all democratically elected and chosen by Americans, according to America’s 227-year-old Constitution—as an “establishment” that had profited at the expense of “the people.” “Their victories have not been your victories,” he said. “Their triumphs have not been your triumphs.” Trump was stating, as clearly as he possibly could, that a new set of values was now replacing the old, though of course the nature of those new values was not yet clear.

Quote

he has governed in defiance—and in ignorance—of the American Constitution, notably declaring, well into his third year in office, that he had “total” authority over the states. His administration is not merely corrupt, it is also hostile to checks, balances, and the rule of law. He has built a proto-authoritarian personality cult, firing or sidelining officials who have contradicted him with facts and evidence—with tragic consequences for public health and the economy. He threatened to fire a top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official, Nancy Messonnier, in late February, after her too-blunt warnings about the coronavirus; Rick Bright, a top Health and Human Services official, says he was demoted after refusing to direct money to promote the unproven drug hydroxychloroquine. Trump has attacked America’s military, calling his generals “a bunch of dopes and babies,” and America’s intelligence services and law-enforcement officers, whom he has denigrated as the “deep state” and whose advice he has ignored. He has appointed weak and inexperienced “acting” officials to run America’s most important security institutions. He has systematically wrecked America’s alliances.

And the damning thought process that appears to drive so many Trump collaborators

Quote

The three most important members of Trump’s Cabinet—Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Attorney General William Barr—are all profoundly shaped by Vichyite apocalyptic thinking. All three are clever enough to understand what Trumpism really means, that it has nothing to do with God or faith, that it is self-serving, greedy, and unpatriotic. Nevertheless, a former member of the administration (one of the few who did decide to resign) told me that both Pence and Pompeo “have convinced themselves that they are in a biblical moment.” All of the things they care about—outlawing abortion and same-sex marriage, and (though this is never said out loud) maintaining a white majority in America—are under threat. Time is growing short. They believe that “we are approaching the Rapture, and this is a moment of deep religious significance.” Barr, in a speech at Notre Dame, has also described his belief that “militant secularists” are destroying America, that “irreligion and secular values are being forced on people of faith.” Whatever evil Trump does, whatever he damages or destroys, at least he enables Barr, Pence, and Pompeo to save America from a far worse fate. If you are convinced we are living in the End Times, then anything the president does can be forgiven.

 

[Weave]

Similar to sentiments I've posted in this thread....

I don't know anything about this "Really American" account on Twitter, but I share their thoughts here.

Quote

 

Really American

@ReallyAmerican1

Armed militias protesting against wearing a mask thought they were protesting a tyrannical government. Now they’re radio silent, and the Portland moms are actually on the frontlines protesting the tyrannical government. Want to protest tyranny? Build a #wallagainsttrump

 

 

[Curt]

21 hours ago, Weave said:

Interesting, but fairly long article in the Atlantic.

History will judge the complicit

This is a long read but I thought that it was excellent.  Not necessarily anything we don’t already know, but a little jarring to see it all catalogued in one narrative with the parallels to other regimes.

It really does piece together certain things happening right now in our country’s political system that on the surface are hard to make sense of.  Especially in this country where most people are not really familiar with this authoritarian, “cult of personality” style of leadership construct, on a first hand basis.

Edited July 26, 2020 by Curt

[LGR4GM]

"Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing." John Stuart Mill, 1867

[darksabre]

This one is for LGR

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-needed-to-be-told-republicans-were-getting-sick-to-take-action-on-coronavirus-report-says?ref=home

 

Quote

Donald Trump’s senior advisers have begun presenting coronavirus data to the president in terms of which electorally important states could be most affected by the virus next and where GOP-leaning areas were being significantly affected in order to sway him into taking stronger action on the virus, The Washington Post reports. In recent weeks, top White House advisers have been presenting Trump “with maps and data showing spikes in coronavirus cases among ‘our people’ in Republican states,” according to a senior administration official quoted by the Post.

Weird that, no matter how much certain people want it to be the case, COVID and politics cannot be separated.

Most of us who aren't intellectual cowards already knew that, of course.

[LGR4GM]

I am not even mildly surprised. If you accept the concept that Trump is a stupid narcissist than all his actions start to make more and more sense. 

[drnkirishone]

An arguement can be made against the stupid claim

Edited July 29, 2020 by drnkirishone
To make people wonder why I did a edit

[LGR4GM]

13 hours ago, drnkirishone said:

An arguement can be made against the stupid claim

Go for it. 

[drnkirishone]

Many of his outrageous boosts or comments seem to come on the heels of other news. Almost like he says something incendiary as a cover for other news and to direct the national headlines

For example his comments and defending of the saudi prince over the assassination of a journalist came around the same time as stories of his daughter using private emails for govt work.

[Curt]

6 hours ago, drnkirishone said:

Many of his outrageous boosts or comments seem to come on the heels of other news. Almost like he says something incendiary as a cover for other news and to direct the national headlines

For example his comments and defending of the saudi prince over the assassination of a journalist came around the same time as stories of his daughter using private emails for govt work.

I don’t believe that Trump is stupid exactly.  His pettiness and ego do get the better of him from time to time though.  Apart from that, he has a lifetime of experience at marketing, self promotion, and lying, and he is very good at it.  I don’t know if that makes him smart, but I don’t think he is dumb.

[LGR4GM]

I think he is a stupid vain man and that drives everything he does. 

For example the economy is fubar so he's tweeting this crap. It doesn't make him smart to try and distract it is just more narcissism. 

 

[LGR4GM]

But the thing is this isn't really distracting. We live in the economy and know it is in free fall. He isn't distracting because we already know what he is trying to distract from. Further this is and has always been his endgame. He cannot afford to lose power and be open to prosecution of himself and his children who are currently being shielded by the immense power he wields. This is like Ceasar, who refused to give up his office because he know he would be prosecuted by his enemies. 

[Weave]

I don't want to live in a world where a really awesome salad is named after Trump.

[drnkirishone]

3 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

But the thing is this isn't really distracting. We live in the economy and know it is in free fall. He isn't distracting because we already know what he is trying to distract from. Further this is and has always been his endgame. He cannot afford to lose power and be open to prosecution of himself and his children who are currently being shielded by the immense power he wields. This is like Ceasar, who refused to give up his office because he know he would be prosecuted by his enemies. 

It is not distracting for you. For the average uninvolved american it is.

[LGR4GM]

Kushner shot down a national testing plan because at the time the only states impacted were blue states and he thought it would be bad politically to help them. If true, that should constitute treason as he would be directly responsible for American deaths and would have betrayed his country. 

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air

 

[Weave]

These sentiments are long gone unfortunately.  Might as well tear down the Statue of Liberty along with those Confederate monuments.

 "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
 

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article244631817.html

[Huckleberry]

So that Alexandra cortia-ortez managed to make headlines here by saying father Damian was an example of white supression.   

A priest that sacrificed his own life to go and help out on Molokai to fight leprosy and was made holy by the church because of it is the prime example of white supression.

I thought she had more of a brain but she is on the same level as Trump to me now.    

Edited August 2, 2020 by Huckleberry

[Weave]

The case for burning it down...

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/02/it-was-all-a-lie-review-trump-republican-party?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&__twitter_impression=true
 

Donald isn’t the cause, he’s a symptom.  The GOP has completely lost its way.

[Curt]

7 hours ago, Huckleberry said:

So that Alexandra cortia-ortez managed to make headlines here by saying father Damian was an example of white supression.   

A priest that sacrificed his own life to go and help out on Molokai to fight leprosy and was made holy by the church because of it is the prime example of white supression.

I thought she had more of a brain but she is on the same level as Trump to me now.    

Valiant effort on the name there.  She is an interesting one.  She has some ideas that I agree with but she says some off the wall things too.  I think that she, like Trump should take a step back from social media.