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

[drogulus]

     I like Danish pastries. I also think Greenland is fine where it is and with ice on it.

[André]

Read in the comments section of a Washington Post article.

Trump acted like a perfect djørk.

[SimonNZ]

Trump quotes right-wing figure who says Israeli Jews love him like 'the second coming of God'

[JBS]

Trump quotes right-wing figure who says Israeli Jews love him like 'the second coming of God'

Of course, we Jews don't believe in a second coming.

There is an important segment of  Israelis who like Trump.  There is also an important segment of Jews who don't like them.

[SimonNZ]

And I would have thought Trump's King Of The Jews posturing would play badly with his Nazi and Nazi-adjacent base.

a follow-up and a double-down:

'I am the Chosen One': with boasts and insults, Trump sets new benchmark for incoherence
President outdoes himself in new press conference as he attacks the Danish prime minister, Jewish Democrats and the press

[...]
"Over an ensuing half-hour rant, Trump trucked in antisemitic tropes, insulted the Danish prime minister, insisted he wasn't racist, bragged about the performance of his former Apprentice reality show, denied starting a trade war with China, praised Vladimir Putin and told reporters that he, Trump, was the "Chosen One" – all within hours of referring to himself as the "King of Israel" and tweeting in all caps: "WHERE IS THE FEDERAL RESERVE?"

Leaving aside those who were left merely gape-jawed, the performance inspired reactions from new expressions of doubt about Trump's fitness for office to evocations of "the last president I know of who compared himself to the Messiah".

(That turns out, according to Brookings Institution fellow Benjamin Wittes, to be Andrew Johnson (1865-9), whose articles of impeachment cited his "intemperate, inflammatory and scandalous harangues".)

After the news conference, the hashtag #25thAmendmentNow was the top trending item on US Twitter, referring to a constitutional proviso by which cabinet members and the vice-president can band together to remove a president deemed unfit.

Soon after the ill-fated driveway news conference got under way, Trump faced a question about his decision to cancel a meeting with Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen, who had rejected a proposal floated by the Trump administration to purchase Greenland as "absurd".

Calling Frederiksen "nasty" – his preferred insult for women in politics – Trump described his wounded pride at the way his offer had been rejected.

"I thought it was a very not nice way of saying something," Trump said. "Don't say 'What an absurd idea that is'... You don't talk to the United States that way, at least under me.

"I thought it was not a nice statement, the way she blew me off."

As Trump continued his attack on Denmark on Twitter from aboard his airplane, the world below struggled with the rest of the wild, wild things he had just said, including an attack on another group: Jews who vote for Democrats.

In response to a news conference Monday by Democratic Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib criticizing their exclusion from Israel, Trump had questioned the "loyalty" of Jews who support Democratic politicians. Accusations of "dual loyalty" have been used in the past in an attempt to undermine and marginalize Jews living outside Israel.

Asked about the "loyalty" charge Wednesday, Trump said: "I have been responsible for a lot of great things for Israel," mentioning the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem and his opposition to Iran.

"I will tell you this, in my opinion, the Democrats have gone very far away from Israel," Trump continued. "In my opinion, if you vote for a Democrat you're being very disloyal to Jewish people, and you're being very disloyal to Israel. And only weak people would say anything other than that."

Trump ignored a shouted question about whether Jews in the United States have a right to be simply American – but Trump denied he was employing an antisemitic trope.

"I haven't heard anybody say that, just the opposite," Trump said.

Trump then embarked on an increasingly breakneck tour through the hills and valleys of a personal political landscape whose map, if it existed, was private to him, although his route was provisionally signposted by questions shouted by the media.

"We wiped out the Caliphate, 100%, I did it in record time," he said of the fight against Isis.

"I am the least racist person ever to serve in office, OK? I am the least racist person," he opined.

And, of course, his journey included a visit to his old favorite stomping ground: reality TV.

"I made a lot of money for NBC with The Apprentice, and I used to like them, but they are so biased," he said. "You are so obviously biased and that's why the public doesn't believe you."

His dislike for the media was on familiar display.

"The fake news, of which many of you are members, are trying to convince the public to have a recession," he said. "'Let's have a recession!'"

But then – as he discussed his trade war with China – came a new twist as Trump bestowed himself with a new title certain to launch a million Twitter memes.

"This is a trade war that should have taken place years ago... somebody had to do it. I am the Chosen One."

That last line echoed a tweet the president had sent earlier in the day, in which Trump quoted the conspiracist Wayne Allyn Root, who in the past has said that violence including the murder of a peace activist at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was "probably paid actors & infiltrators hired by Soros".

"The Jewish people in Israel love him," Trump quoted Root as saying on Wednesday, "like he's the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God."

[JBS]

And I would have thought Trump's King Of The Jews posturing would play badly with his Nazi and Nazi-adjacent base

It's more complicated than that. Some of the white supremacists see Israel as a precedent for their vision of an ethnic state, while others are bound by their Islamophobia (Moslems bad, Moslems hate Israel. Ergo, Israel good.)

[SimonNZ]

In a different article the Guardian describes Clara Sands, the US ambassador to Denmark, as "the neophyte US envoy to Copenhagen who was previously an actor and chiropractor" and "best known until now for her starring role in the 1988 film Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell".

[drogulus]

Of course, we Jews don't believe in a second coming.

     The disloyal ones don't believe in a first one, either.

     I often wonder what Jews think of evangelicals using them as pawns in a war that ends with their annihilation when "that person", as Voltaire called him, comes back, the Jews don't accept him and are damned.

     See, I wouldn't do that, and friends don't do that as a rule. I rarely damn anybody, and not without reason.

And I would have thought Trump's King Of The Jews posturing would play badly with his Nazi and Nazi-adjacent base.

     That would assume these people don't get the evangelical bank shot. That's not an assumption I would make.

[SimonNZ]

I guess I'll never understand the white supremacist mindset. A lack of empathy on my part, I'm sure.

Will the Evangelicals who finally offered a word of criticism of him for saying "God Damn" (kids in cages didn't do it) be offended at this blasphemy? Or is it OK because he IS the second coming? (but then shouldn't the second coming be allowed to cuss as much as he wants?)

[Herman]

By refusing flat out to discuss the matter the Danish prime minister lost a good opportunity to make a bold move. Instead of purchase she could have proposed an exchange: Greenland for an US State of roughly the same area. 

That would be Texas, where everybody shoots everybody. Not a good deal.

[Herman]

     Trump is so scared that a recession will doom his reelection chances

That's what this crazy stuff is about, including the "Greenland Deal" and "2nd Coming".

Trump is acting like a demented maniac just to prevent the looming recession from dominating the news, which would take away a motive for semi-sane people to vote GOP in 2020.

[Florestan]

That would be Texas, where everybody shoots everybody. Not a good deal.

Well, in Denmark guns are strictly regulated and mass gunshots are as rare as a hen's teeth. Maybe 5 years of strict Denmark's rule in Texas might work wonders and inspire other US States to follow suit. 

[arpeggio]

I was watching the Caine Mutiny on Turner Classic Movies.  I then I saw Trump's latest whatever with the press and I thought oh my God.  I was waiting for him to pull out a handful of metal balls out of his pocket.

[SimonNZ]

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"Just Security has compiled significant documents in Congress's various Russia investigations dating back to the 2016 election cycle. This collection seeks to include significant original source materials including letters, subpoenas, deposition transcripts, hearing transcripts, press statements, contempt resolutions, criminal referrals, and any subpoena enforcement litigation."

[JBS]

I guess I'll never understand the white supremacist mindset. A lack of empathy on my part, I'm sure.

Will the Evangelicals who finally offered a word of criticism of him for saying "God Damn" (kids in cages didn't do it) be offended at this blasphemy? Or is it OK because he IS the second coming? (but then shouldn't the second coming be allowed to cuss as much as he wants?)

Evangelicals support him because he, in general, supports their social cultural agenda that aims to reimpose strict Christian views on society. Criminalize abortion, marginalize transgender people, and (since SSM is a horse out of the barn) allow them to discriminate against anyone they wish to.  Everything else is secondary to that. Call it a deal with the Devil.

As to the social cultural agenda that God lays out in the Bible (and Jesus in the New Testament)...well they are fine helping poor people in other countries as long as those poor people don't have the effontery to actually come the US and ask for it here.

[Karl Henning]

I guess I'll never understand the white supremacist mindset. A lack of empathy on my part, I'm sure.

Will the Evangelicals who finally offered a word of criticism of him for saying "God Damn" (kids in cages didn't do it) be offended at this blasphemy? Or is it OK because he IS the second coming? (but then shouldn't the second coming be allowed to cuss as much as he wants?)

Forget what Jesus said: Trump is the savior.

[drogulus]

Forget what Jesus said: Trump is the savior.

     I'm not going to believe in him anymore if he said that.

[drogulus]

     Trump is saying Powell is the enemy after the Fed lowered interest rates like he wanted. Why did Trump appoint a monetarist shrinkster out of Central Casting in the first place? Didn't he realize that Yellen wouldn't need to be pressured into accommodation because she wouldn't have had to correct for a blunder she wouldn't have committed? She wasn't that short!

     Powell is being forced by circumstances beyond his control to do what's right, while it looks like it's for the wrong reason, caving to Trump. I think he's come into conflict with his own prior dogmatics as the world punishes him for being such a dumbass.

[JBS]

Trump has decided to order via Twitter, all American companies to stop doing business with China. The immediate result is to send the Dow falling by about 600 points.

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1164914959131848705

[ritter]

What kind of political system does the U.S. have, where the President can "order" companies to do anything?