The Potemkin presidency (of Trump)

[gotsnowgotslush]

The Potemkin presidency

Boston Globe

Michael A. Cohen
NOVEMBER 27, 2018

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion...-presidency/oG5gEjc5SVzFmnwBsWBCwN/story.html

"...perhaps the most striking feature of the Trump Cult: a never-ending stream of tortured rationalizations, lame excuses, and brazen whataboutism. Every transgression is forgiven; every bad act absolved; every lapse excused away.

The party of responsibility has become the party of “He didn’t really mean it and so what if he did.”

Trump’s supporters have constructed their own Potemkin Village in which the president can do no wrong, the winning never ends, and the wall will get built any day now. It is, in many ways, become the defining characteristic of the modern Republican Party — whitewash the past, the present, and the future. And if all fails, point a finger at the liberals because, after all, aren’t they worse?

Ideally, one day this political fever will break. America will become a place where facts and history and science matter. Or perhaps a century and half from now at the Trump Presidential Library, visitors will have their chance to buy Trump shot glasses, beer can holders, vintage MAGA hats, and even glossy hardcovers titled “Trump Was Right.”

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Federal agents raid offices of Chicago alderman with deep ties to Trump


It's another small development in a very bad week for the White House


November 29, 2018

https://thinkprogress.org/federal-a...lderman-with-deep-ties-to-trump-8369616dccd0/

 

[Kirkrapine]

And they immediately papered over his office windows!

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Donald Trump, defender of Christian America ?
It’s not as ludicrous as it sounds

For Christian nationalists, Trump’s presidency is a gift from God — and his unethical conduct is a major plus


PAUL ROSENBERG

APRIL 1, 2018

Whitehead’s research shows, is Trump’s role as a champion of “Christian nationalism” — an Old Testament-based worldview fusing Christian and American identities, and sharpening the divide with those who are excluded from it. That stands in contrast to the tradition of “civil religion,” which “often refers to America’s covenantal relationship with a divine Creator who promises blessings for the nation for fulfilling its responsibility to defend liberty and justice.”


“Christian nationalism, however, draws its roots from ‘Old Testament’ parallels between America and Israel, who was commanded to maintain cultural and blood purity, often through war, conquest, and separatism,” Whitehead’s(Clemson sociologist Andrew Whitehead) paper explains. “Unlike civil religion, contemporary manifestations of Christian nationalism can be unmoored from traditional moral import, emphasizing only its notions of exclusion and apocalyptic war and conquest.”

(gsgs comment- "God/god wills it!")

Whitehead’s paper and the larger body of research on Christian nationalism can help us become more precise in understanding the nature of Trumpism, and the broader religious right agenda that has fueled such strong and deep support for him. When Christian nationalists talk about “religious liberty,” for example, they do not mean it to apply to everyone equally.


According to Clarkson ( Frederick Clarkson of Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank in Massachusetts), Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, a Christian right group, has said that "he believed that religious freedom is reserved for orthodox viewpoints only. This is the vision of the Christian nation,” Clarkson continued, “in line with a seminal thinker of contemporary Christian nationalism, the late R.J. Rushdoony, who wrote that ‘only the right have rights.'

https://www.salon.com/2018/04/01/do...an-america-its-not-as-ludicrous-as-it-sounds/

 

[ArtisticX]

Haha you guys are still hatin' the best president you've ever known?

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Homeland Security and Justice Department officials are feuding

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/trump-asylum-mexico-waiting-disagree

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

NBC is supporting some the false fronts of Trump's Potemkin presidency

Normal people, that have not joined the TRUMP FOREVER, NO MATTER WHAT cult, look at Trump and Melania the Malevolent at the funeral-

and give NBC's pronouncement, that Trump was "presidential" as bullshit.

Jason O. Gilbert
Jason O. Gilbert
@gilbertjasono
·
Dec 3
In 2 days we’re going to get headlines like “Trump Looks Presidential at Bush Funeral” because he manages to sit quietly for 30 minutes without pulling a McRib out of his suit pocket

12:16 PM · Dec 3, 2018


Conversation
Amee Vanderpool
Amee Vanderpool
@girlsreallyrule

First he rocks, then he tries to be as patient as he can for 10 seconds, then he tries to leave but Mommy says no, then despite never serving in the military, he salutes out of nowhere.

HE SEEMS GREAT.

1:54 PM · Dec 4, 2018

Really, NBC ? Really ?

What's driving the toned-down Trump?

Analysis: Temporary or not, from foreign trips to funeral preparation, the most unconventional of commanders-in-chief is suddenly hitting some standard presidential notes

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna943611?__twitter_impression=true


gsgs comment- I agree with the twitter commenters. This article needs to be pitchforked into the compost heap with the rest of the barn waste.

plus-

They invited to Trump, because he was actively disruptive and horrible during the John McCain funeral, because he was not invited. This was the pacification of a man with a toddler's disposition. He did not hold up the dignity of the office that he is holding. Everyone around him followed form, despite current politics. He pouted, fumed, steamed, and pulled faces. When he was sitting with tge presidents and their wives, he was wearing the "I hate everybody, and I will pay them back for this" expression. FFS, he was at a funeral for a president.


Something is wrong with Trump.

He is fucking delusional.

Once, again, Melania hung her head and hid her face.


Good point, brought up by commenters on twitter-
Trump may have dog phobia, because dogs are quick to detect "off," "weird," or malignant, or just plain evil.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

The tension is increasing.


Trump Spite House propaganda is reaching "Adventures of Baron Munchausen" levels of hysteria.