Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[Todd]

Well?

Think hard.

[milk]

Think hard.

Ah, you're just trolling. OK.

[Todd]

Ah, you're just trolling. OK.

Witty and powerful.

[milk]

Witty and powerful.

See what I mean?

[Todd]

See what I mean?

No.

[Karl Henning]

Ah, you're just trolling. OK.

Aye, he does that a lot.

[71 dB]

Aye, he does that a lot.

No wonder the last page or so of this thread looks silly. Blame the toddler...

[milk]

Aye, he does that a lot.

I'm genuinely interested in this attitude. I can even understand it, if you hate "liberals" so much and wish to see them thwarted and inflamed by any means necessary. I don't know if it's a question of wanting to see the temple pulled down on one's head or feeling that a politics of vindictiveness is sort of productive. Or, perhaps there is no future so at least the "enemy" will get what's coming to them while we all crash and burn. Personally, I take pleasure in Tump's humiliation as well, so I can understand the fun of seeing "the other side" get what's coming. But, at the end of the day, I feel understanding still matters and compromise, moderation and humanity in politics is edifying, or should be. My friends on the far left, and you can see this in the Glenn Greenwald-s of the world, believe America is a great evil and Hillary was another corporate shill (maybe they would say just like Obama). So they also want to see a thumb in the eye of CNN, mainstream politics, or whomever. The right thinks Obama was some sort of communist while the fringe left thinks he was in the pocket of the banks and military complex. If someone says there is not one reason to be skeptical or critical or Dump, and that all the reasons people get upset are amusing, I want to ask why...Maybe it's just that there's been enough animosity that some would see no reason for dialogue. Maybe I'm being too serious. After all, as I said, I do find it amusing every time, every day, that a pimple is popped on the face of the Rump presidency.   

[eljr]

Ah, you're just trolling. OK.

some things never change

I'll never  understand people that go on message boards just to troll.

[Todd]

So much moral preening for lefties to do, so little time.  Perhaps the righteous deep thinkers of GMG can catalog the positive effect their moral preening has had on the world given the vast audience of literally tens of active posters on the board. 

[Christo]

some things never change

I'll never  understand people that go on message boards just to troll.

Only cynicism inspires him. This cynicism is perhaps the most dangerous side of the present conservative revolution: no ideals but only contempt and hatred (actually the opposite of conservatism, which should stand for tradition and inherited values).

[Todd]

Only cynicism inspires him. This cynicism is perhaps the most dangerous side of the present conservative revolution: no ideals but only contempt and hatred (actually the opposite of conservatism, which should stand for tradition and inherited values).

Only good-ish stuff.  You forgot to include your pseudo-intellectual "post-modern" description this time.

[Christo]

Aye, he does that a lot.

Yes indeed he does.

[Que]

Cynicism amongst conservatives seems innocent enough, though I doubt the morality of simply stop caring about the greater good of the nation and democratic values.

Conservative cynicism can lead to events like Brexit..... or worse....

Republicans under Trump 'risk being remembered like 1930s German conservatives', Yale historian warns

Q

[71 dB]

So much moral preening for lefties to do, so little time.

It's the people on the right that give lefties reason to do "moral preening" in the first place.

[Todd]

Republicans under Trump 'risk being remembered like 1930s German conservatives', Yale historian warns

Oh noes, a Yalie pontificates on similarities between 30s era Germany and the contemporary US!  That's some original scholarship there.

It's the people on the right that give lefties reason to do "moral preening" in the first place.

OK.

[BasilValentine]

See what I mean?

Reminds me of the argument clinic sketch — you came for an argument but he's ... Well they explain it so much more amusingly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNkjDuSVXiE

[Que]

Oh noes, a Yalie pontificates on similarities between 30s era Germany and the contemporary US!  That's some original scholarship there.

Hardly surprising, looking for patterns and similarities is what historians do.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme - similar, repeating mechanisms in varying circumstances.
The comparison with the 1930s is not particularly far fetched - I cannot think of a time in history that resembles the current times closer.

Q

[BasilValentine]

So much moral preening for lefties to do, so little time.  Perhaps the righteous deep thinkers of GMG can catalog the positive effect their moral preening has had on the world given the vast audience of literally tens of active posters on the board.

Will you please define moral preening as (or if?) you intend us to understand it? I ask because as you have been using it, it doesn't seem to have conceptual content.

[Todd]

Hardly surprising, looking for patterns and similarities is what historians do.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme - similar, repeating mechanisms in varying circumstances.
The comparison with the 1930s is not particularly far fetched - I cannot think of a time in history that resembles the current times closer.

Maybe.  I have serious doubts about the validity of comparisons of the current situation to 30s era Germany, by which I mean they are nonsensical.

Besides, just take a look at what AmPo reports today: Defiance, resistance: The front lines of California's war against the Trump administration

California is at war with the Trump administration.  War!