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

[Todd]

So, let me get this straight: Trump is not a racist, he just happens to publicly support racists. Is that how we excuse this abomination?

No need to excuse it.  You can attack it, defend it, ignore it, or whatever.  It makes for great, diversionary wedge politics, though.

[nodogen]

No need to excuse it.  You can attack it, defend it, ignore it, or whatever.  It makes for great, diversionary wedge politics, though.

It is disgusting. A British MP was murdered recently, the attacker shouted "Britain First" before killing her. That is the far right group that produced these videos. Still, great politics, though.

[Mahlerian]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42166663

So, let me get this straight: Trump is not a racist, he just happens to publicly support racists. Is that how we excuse this abomination?

You could be like Todd and not excuse him, but rather simply ridicule anyone who calls him out.

[Todd]

You could be like Todd and not excuse him, but rather simply ridicule anyone who calls him out.

Moral preeners deserve nothing less.

[Mahlerian]

Moral preeners deserve nothing less.

I'm impressed by the amount of insight you have into the human psyche.  You know the motivations of just about everyone, simply from words posted on an online forum.  It should be quite the marketable talent.

[Karl Henning]

You could be like Todd and not excuse him, but rather simply ridicule anyone who calls him out.

"A vehicle to attack the Dems."

[Karl Henning]

I'm impressed by the amount of insight you have into the human psyche.  You know the motivations of just about everyone, simply from words posted on an online forum.  It should be quite the marketable talent.

I think he's getting pointers from snypsss.

[Turner]

Coquettish cynicism is just as old as morals. Nothing new under the Sun.

[Florestan]

Once again: you don't know that people aren't concerned about that - they almost certainly are. But this is the Trump thread, so we comment here on Trump - and his frightening and reckless ineptitude.

The very fact that there is an ongoing GMG thread on Trump, yet there is not a single one on North Korea, Venezuela or Zimbabwe is proof enough that, at least for people who regularly visit this board, what Trump says or tweets is far more important than anything actually happening in NK, V or Z --- hypocritical protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.

[Todd]

You know the motivations of just about everyone, simply from words posted on an online forum.

Nope, not at all.  I respond to the posts as written.  Many contain much sanctimony.  It's nothing I've not seen and heard for decades.  Yes, yes, I understand that you are different, that you use reason to arrive at your supremely logical, indeed irrefutable, conclusions and pontifications, and that your friends would agree.

[Todd]

Coquettish cynicism is just as old as morals. Nothing new under the Sun.

So are nihilism and anarchism and presumably some other -isms.

[Mahlerian]

Nope, not at all.  I respond to the posts as written.  Many contain much sanctimony.

Indeed.  You are very adept at describing your own posts.  Truly, your insight is impeccable.

[Karl Henning]

Coquettish cynicism is just as old as morals. Nothing new under the Sun.

Garn!

[Todd]

Indeed.  You are very apt at describing your own posts.  Truly, your insight is impeccable.

I see what you tried to do there.

[Todd]

So, Matt Lauer is gone in the morning, and Garrison Keillor is gone at lunch.  Who else will be fired before the end of the day?


Anyway, back to important stuff:

GOP looks to jam Democrats in shutdown fight: Republicans are preparing to advance a short-term spending bill without relief for Dreamers — and dare Democrats to vote against it.

[SimonNZ]

The very fact that there is an ongoing GMG thread on Trump, yet there is not a single one on North Korea, Venezuela or Zimbabwe is proof enough that, at least for people who regularly visit this board, what Trump says or tweets is far more important than anything actually happening in NK, V or Z --- hypocritical protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.

There are no threads for them because there is no blzzare pro and con divide that people want to get their head around.

If Trump is more important it's because of the many ways he can cause global calamity, to say nothing of local, and his seeming desire for it.

[Karl Henning]

Not for the cynical coquette alone:

The fact that sexual-assault victims who go public must endure both shame and doubt is not up for debate. Just look at the comments under any tweet or article on the subject. It's always a lot of "Why did she wait so long?" (It's not like there's any humiliation, painful emotions, or concern about jerks like you not believing her!) or "She's just doing it for the fame!" (Because, you know, if a woman wants to be famous, all she has to do is randomly accuse a powerful man of sexual assault. That's totally how you get to the red carpet, and not how you get people to be reluctant to work with you because they think you're a "troublemaker"!) or "Why didn't she sue?" (Because a 14-year-old from a broken home definitely had the resources to take on a district attorney in a he-said-she-said legal battle!) or even "She was asking for it" (Yes! Blame the victim!).

[...]

Somehow, though, [President Butternut] has managed to turn the phrase "Fake News!" into a wool over too many people's eyes, making them completely blind to even the most basic of facts. It's sad but it's true: We now live in a world where, for too many people, "More than 30 sources" can be countered with simply, "The Washington Post Is Fake News!" and that's that.

[Todd]

So I guess you are not one of those Dems who are minimizing the Al Franken allegations by vilifying his accuser?

Accusers.  Plural.  Same with Conyers. 

I, for one, hope the real scandal that is the legal settlement slush-fund set up for Congress ends up destroying many careers.

[Florestan]

There are no threads for them because there is no blzzare pro and con divide that people want to get their head around.

If Trump is more important it's because of the many ways he can cause global calamity, to say nothing of local, and his seeming desire to want it.

Ummm... nope, sorry, not by a long stretch.

Hugo Chavez, Robert Mugabe and Kim Jong-Un were up&running and doing their business-as-usual all the while Barrack Obama was POTUS (ie, 8 whole years). Not a single word of protestation, let alone a whole thread, was ever heard, or started meanwhile, on GMG.

As for Trump being "more important [... ]because of the many ways he can cause global calamity", this is an open, albeit unintentional, acknowledgment of the fact that peoples' lives don't matter as long as they don't count as "global".

I stand by what I wrote: hypocrisy!

[Parsifal]

So I guess you are not one of those Dems who are minimizing the Al Franken allegations by vilifying his accuser?

I do not vilify his accuser, but there are degrees of misconduct. Franken was a former SNL comedian performing a comedy sketch with an Tweeden, an actress in a USO sketch. Both SNL and USO shows have a tradition of sexualized comedy sketches (going back to Marilyn Monroe and Bob Hope).  Tweeden took part in other sexualized sketches in the same tour. In one a country western singer slaps her butt and she slaps his butt back, in another she wraps her leg around another male performer in a mock-sexual pose. Perhaps the kiss in the Franken sketch went too far, was unpleasant for her and made her angry. That's not the same as sexually molestation of a 14 year old or attempted rape of a 16 year old by a prosecutor who used his position of power to intimidate his victims.