Trump's Threat to Democracy

[SecretSapphic]

Polite society warns against the drawing of certain historical parallels. But as another tumultuous year of Donald Trump’s presidency draws to a close, it seems like a good time to ask: Where does one look for a political equivalent in a year when the president’s supporters chanted “send her back” about a nonwhite member of Congress?

Should we attach a bland label like “illiberalism” to such a wretched public display when “fascism” fits so much better? And what term best describes a 2019 political rally where a U.S. president, who had previously suggested the shooting of migrants, laughed as a supporter shouted that they should be gunned down at the border?

Do we bite our tongues as Trump apologists dismiss this rhetoric as harmless? Do we stay silent as left-wing commentators claim this to be the natural progression of Reagan conservatism? How do we define Trump’s slandering of Hispanics as breeders? How should newspaper editors and political leaders label a presidency that inspired white supremacists such as David Duke to celebrate Trump’s moral equivocation after Charlottesville? Terms such as “illiberalism” and “conservatism” seem both inaccurate and inadequate.

It is difficult to remember a time when Trump was seen as little more than a bumptious reality star who plastered his name on steaks, water bottles and apartment buildings around the world. Manhattan society long viewed the reality host’s career as the vulgar elevation of a trashy aesthetic, but millions of Americans always saw something more. Even during his political ascent, Republican and Democratic leaders alike shared Sen. Lindsey O. Graham’s view that the future president was a clown who had neither the character nor intelligence to be America’s next commander in chief. But elites’ failure to grasp Trump’s appeal, then and now, made him a greater threat to the natural checks and balances of Madisonian democracy.


One should never compare Trump’s rise directly to that of German fascism, and still there are lessons that can be drawn from every era. Sebastian Haffner’s 1939 memoir “Defying Hitler” spoke of influencers who initially dismissed the Nazi party for its “violent stupidity,” much like Trump’s critics mocked the reality star’s candidacy with a chuckle. The “Saturday Night Live” skit with Hillary Clinton laughing at her good fortune for drawing Trump as a political opponent comes to mind.

“I was inclined not to take them very seriously,” Haffner wrote in 1939, “a common attitude among their inexperienced opponents, which helped them a lot.” The German journalist and lawyer observed that while the “vilest abuse” could be directed toward Jews, “the process of the law was not changed at all.”


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...531bc8-2b2f-11ea-bcd4-24597950008f_story.html

 

[SecretSapphic]

A cursory review of Auschwitz or Dachau’s history reveals how the evil of Hitler’s reign does not remotely compare to the current state of U.S. politics. The cost of illiberalism’s spread in the age of Trump may be better understood by studying the erosion of democratic norms in Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey or Viktor Orban’s Hungary, or the further strengthening of China and Russia’s autocratic regimes. But we should still remain mindful that the failure of Germany’s political, financial and media elites to serve as a bulwark against the illiberal impulses that seized that country then mirrors the failure of American leaders initially to grasp the consequences of Donald J. Trump. Three years later, the question remains of how best to respond to that threat.

Before his passing, The Post’s Charles Krauthammer wrote that “the sinews of our democracy” were still holding “against the careening recklessness of this presidency.” Whether those institutions can hold firm through a second Trump term remains an open question. Ever the optimist, I suspect that a country that, during the 20th century alone, survived numerous financial crises, the Great Depression and two world wars while also beating back the spread of Nazism and Soviet Communism, can survive four more years of Trump. But why tempt fate?

I knew Trump fairly well before he entered politics. Like many, I saw him first as a cartoonish figure, colorful but innocuous. Then I saw him as an entertainer, superficial but engaging. Then I saw him as a threat, appealing but erratic. Then, at last, I saw this reality TV president as a malevolent character, inspiring fascist chants while proving to be more hapless than any of his 43 predecessors. All versions of Trump have been cynical and manipulative, but his latest incarnation has proved to be destructive to his party, his country and the world.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...531bc8-2b2f-11ea-bcd4-24597950008f_story.html

 

[SecretSapphic]

Though you may not know Trump as I once did, you do know that only a weak man speaks endlessly of his strength and only an ignorant man brags incessantly of his wisdom. Despite these debilitating flaws, or perhaps because of them, Adm. William McRaven — the man who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden — believes Donald Trump is the greatest threat facing American democracy. How voters respond to that danger in the new year may well determine the arc of our future for a generation to come.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...531bc8-2b2f-11ea-bcd4-24597950008f_story.html

 

[JackLuis]

The question is will Republicans "Protect and Defend" the Constitution or will they in their zeal for more Tax cuts, become Trumpists? They have welcomed the Tea Party astro-turf into their fold will they reject the Trumpists or become Trumpublicans in the end of their life as a party?

Will the real Republicans rise up and remove the Trupublicans from their shrinking tent? Will they listen to George Will and Max Boot and reclaim their intellectual basis of conservatism?

Will the voters react and wipe the stain of Trumpisim from our national discourse?

The odds are against them.

 

[Cubantripod]

Though you may not know Trump as I once did, you do know that only a weak man speaks endlessly of his strength and only an ignorant man brags incessantly of his wisdom. Despite these debilitating flaws, or perhaps because of them, Adm. William McRaven — the man who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden — believes Donald Trump is the greatest threat facing American democracy. How voters respond to that danger in the new year may well determine the arc of our future for a generation to come.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...531bc8-2b2f-11ea-bcd4-24597950008f_story.html

The bigger threat is from the Military Industrial Complex. Trump was elected because people are tired of being the world's police and these endless wars. I had a professor back in 2000 who made the argument that in the next 100 years, the U.S. will be under a military dictatorship. Since we've eliminated the draft, we don't have a mix of beliefs in the military. We have military families and a war hawk mindset. The complex will push for wars and when they don't get the wars they want, they will take over. Your comment may suggest he may be right.

 

[phrodeau]

Trump has proved himself to be ZERO threat to Democracy. On the other hand, Democrats are a constant and pervasive threat to our country. Simply put...they hate the U.S.A.

They're just better at projection. Simple reminder...anytime someone on the left accuses someone on the right of doing something...they're projecting and guilty of the very thing that makes up their accusation.

1. Electoral College - Democrats Want to Abolish it.
2. Supreme Court - Democrats have suggested impeaching supreme court justices (kavanaugh).
3. Impeachment - For the first time every in our country's history, a political party has passed impeachment resolutions that do not include a crime or misdemeanor. WORSE...they are not following the constitutional role of the house of representatives for impeachment. Rather, they are trying to influence/control the Senate's process which is specifically and directly UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
4. Press - Democrats (obama) have spied on reporters. Not Trump. Obama.
5. 2nd Amendment - Democrats have consistently tried to reduce or outright eliminate the 2nd amendment protections for the right to bear arms. Northam (VA)
Note: The 2nd amendment is directly responsible for saving lives in the recent church shooting (white settlement).
6. Democrats have used law enforcement powers to spy on americans in violation of their 4th amendment right under the constitution. (carter page)
7. Democrats have proposed revoking patents for companies, violating the U.S. Patent Law (Big Chief Warren)

I'm sure there are more examples. These are just off the top of my head.

1. SecretSapphic...you're wrong. Your side is the threat to the constitution.
2. Projection...it just doesn't work any longer.
3. Diatribes like the one above may make you feel better, but they actually make you look uninformed and unhinged.

1. The Electoral College has been altered by at least three Amendments so far.

2. Nixon tried to impeach Justice Fortas, and Ford tried to impeach Justice Douglas.

5. The Second Amendment is directly responsible for the deaths in the recent church shooting.

 

[Jesus_Ateo]

Trump goes to Mar-a-Lago to play golf, but on Wednesday he was angry, angry at the “lamestream Media” for reporting that he played golf during the siege of the American embassy in Iraq. Trump repeatedly huffed that he did not play golf on Wednesday. Which would be easier to believe, had he not been pictured in golf clothes, riding in a golf cart, with his golf clubs. Still, it did seem that there was a moment during the siege when Trump actually departed the links. Not a long moment, as he was certainly back out there making divots on Wednesday. But Trump did appear to make a token wave toward the idea that an international crisis might merit taking a pause on his backswing.

But certainly Trump isn’t letting anything less than a full brink-of-war event interfere with his critical schedule of sending the Secret Service scurrying for balls in the rough. CNN is just one of several sources that tallied up Trump’s time on the course at the end of 2019 and found that he spent a good 20% of his time directly out there riding around in carts. That’s 252 days at a Trump golf course and 333 days at a Trump resort since taking office. Well before he finishes out year four, Trump will have taken a full year of vacation.

By far the largest share of that time has been spent in the Grape-Nuts-funded fantasyland of Mar-a-Lago. And while Trump’s golf-playing is the most visible sign of his self-indulgence, it’s what he does off the links that’s the bigger concern.


Trump loves going to Mar-a-Lago for a very good reason. He may not be able to attend a major sporting event, or visit any other public venue, without meeting a rousing chorus of boos, but he can always be sure of support from those he calls “his people.” The members of Mar-a-Lago are not there for a golf course that doesn’t even rate in the nation’s top 100. They’re shelling out a quarter-million a year for access. Trump makes absolutely no bones about giving them that access. At Mar-a-Lago, he’s at home. At Mar-a-Lago he doesn’t have to keep up even the pretense of caring for anyone who isn’t willing and able to pay to be at his elbow.

As Politico reports, Mar-a-Lago allows Trump to invite who he wants, and talk as he wants, without the “gatekeepers” of Washington. To liven up the 2019 holiday season, guests included child-murdering Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher, whom Trump forgave even after members of his own team saw him convicted of war crimes. And of course Rudy Giuliani was there to chat with Trump about the trip to Ukraine that he conducted right in the middle of Trump’s impeachment in the House, and the ongoing effort to cook up some dirt that can be used against Joe Biden. And Giuliani wasn’t the only lawyer who got to exchange a “Happy holidays.” Trump supporter, and former attorney to Jeffrey Epstein, Alan Dershowitz was also there to chat in the buffet line. Like Trump, Dershowitz is accused of not just being an acquaintance of Epstein’s, but taking part in his underage sex trafficking.

As Politico notes, all of this makes Trump “much more comfortable,” because at the White House there are staffers who “try to keep out shady individuals.” Trump doesn’t just like shady individuals. Trump is a shady individual. Being able to yuk it up with his fellow thieves, manipulators, and con men makes Trump feel “liberated.”

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...laugh-with-the-ultra-wealthy?detail=emaildkre

 

[BotanyBoy]

Trump has proved himself to be ZERO threat to Democracy. On the other hand, Democrats are a constant and pervasive threat to our country. Simply put...they hate the U.S.A.

It's true...(D)eez fucking hate the USA, thus their push to end individual rights, bring about an authoritarian state and arbitrarily end everyones pursuit of happiness.

Because they know the real truth is that the USA isn't about freedom!!

Individual rights and liberty??? That's just fascistic silly Nazi talk. True Americans are about collectivism and equity....just ask a progressive.

Also notice how when (D)eez claim Trump is a threat to democracy they don't actually point to how he's a thread to democracy??? They just list shit they don't like about him.

That's because (D)eez don't give 2 pumps of rat shit about democracy, if they did they wouldn't be scrounging for any conspiracy theory they could find to oust Trump at any cost.

(D)eez get what they want?? THAT is democracy.....not getting what they want is Fascism.

And if you pull a dictionary/encyclopedia on them??? You're just an uneducated, stupid, racist, xenophobic NAZI!!!

LOL.....it's great

 

[Leather_Lesbian]

The profound damage President Trump has inflicted on our liberties can be measured by widespread complacency in the face of his administration’s escalating attacks on the rule of law, our public servants and the truth itself.

As Attorney General William P. Barr was reducing the Justice Department to a legal defense and public relations firm, Trump himself (who pretends to be law enforcement’s greatest friend) was attacking the FBI in terms that authoritarians use to prepare the way for persecuting their political enemies.

“Look how they’ve hurt people,” Trump told his supporters Tuesday night in Hershey, Pa.. “They’ve destroyed the lives of people that were great people, that are still great people. Their lives have been destroyed by scum. Okay, by scum.”

Please pause here. “Scum” was the word used twice by the president of the United States about those who dedicate their lives to battling wrongdoing and lawlessness. And because he is Trump, the response involved mostly shrugs and head shaking.


When this presidency began, it was commonplace to write off fears that our political and journalistic systems would eventually “normalize” the president’s abuses. The worry was that however strong our system might have been in the past, we would come to accept behavior that had never been acceptable before.

This is exactly what has happened. When the House unveiled impeachment articles on Tuesday, a large share of the reporting and commentary was about the political risks facing Democrats for insisting on something that would once have been uncontroversial: It is a chilling threat to freedom and to democracy for the commander in chief to use his power to press a foreign government to investigate a political opponent.

Not long ago, the hopeful — and also the complacent — were certain that such a thing could never happen here. But it has happened here.


And the Republican Party — including many of its leaders from whom we once expected better — has reacted not with horror but by closing ranks around their petulant, abusive leader, accepting from him behavior they would have rightly denounced from any other president.

For years now, Team Trump claimed that an honest examination would prove “deep state” conspiracy theories. In probing possible Russian ties to the Trump campaign, the FBI was “spying” as part of a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

The Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, undertook just such an inquiry. As he explained to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, his office found that the FBI’s investigation “was opened for an authorized investigative purpose and with sufficient factual predication.” It “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation” lay behind the FBI’s actions.

This, of course, did not matter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). He announced his conclusion before the hearing began to “CBS This Morning.”

“When he says that there’s no evidence of political bias or political motive — everybody involved in this investigation hated Donald Trump,” Graham said. “They wanted to bring down this president. I really believe that.” Graham’s beliefs mattered more than a 434-page report, the product of almost two years of work.

Worse were Barr’s attacks on his own department’s inspector general and his furthering of Trump’s conspiracy theories — Barr called the FBI’s effort to unmask Russian influence a “travesty” — along with a highly unusual public statement from Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham.

Handpicked by Barr to undertake yet another investigation of the Trump investigation, Durham said his office had advised Horowitz that “we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.” Horowitz said Wednesday he was “surprised” by Durham’s statement in light of his own interactions with him.


As for Trump, he attacked his own appointee, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, who said he accepted Horowitz’s conclusions, including criticisms of his own agency. Trump wasn’t happy, tweeting about Wray: “With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI.” This was either a threat to fire Wray or an attempt to pressure the director to think twice about any future steps that might hurt Trump’s image. One way or the other, it was a corrupt effort to, well, put the “fix” in.

Slowly, gradually, but inexorably, our country is accepting the unacceptable. We thought we had a consensus about basic norms that protect freedom and self-government. That consensus has been swept away by Republican partisans who value political power over the constitutional liberties they have always claimed to revere above everything else.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...2481b4-1c5a-11ea-87f7-f2e91143c60d_story.html

 

[KeithD]

Yes, Trump openly displays that he is scum and bent on destroying the United States at the direction of Vladimir Putin--and the board Trumpettes here are supporting him in this endeavor.

 

[jp55665566]

Yes, Trump openly displays that he is scum and bent on destroying the United States at the direction of Vladimir Putin--and the board Trumpettes here are supporting him in this endeavor.

Hoo-boy... still trying to sell that President Trump is a Russian agent thing?

 

[allison22]

Please pause here. “Scum” was the word used twice by the president of the United States about those who dedicate their lives to battling wrongdoing and lawlessness. And because he is Trump, the response involved mostly shrugs and head shaking.


When this presidency began, it was commonplace to write off fears that our political and journalistic systems would eventually “normalize” the president’s abuses. The worry was that however strong our system might have been in the past, we would come to accept behavior that had never been acceptable before.

This is exactly what has happened. When the House unveiled impeachment articles on Tuesday, a large share of the reporting and commentary was about the political risks facing Democrats for insisting on something that would once have been uncontroversial: It is a chilling threat to freedom and to democracy for the commander in chief to use his power to press a foreign government to investigate a political opponent.

Not long ago, the hopeful — and also the complacent — were certain that such a thing could never happen here. But it has happened here.


And the Republican Party — including many of its leaders from whom we once expected better — has reacted not with horror but by closing ranks around their petulant, abusive leader, accepting from him behavior they would have rightly denounced from any other president.

For years now, Team Trump claimed that an honest examination would prove “deep state” conspiracy theories. In probing possible Russian ties to the Trump campaign, the FBI was “spying” as part of a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

The Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, undertook just such an inquiry. As he explained to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, his office found that the FBI’s investigation “was opened for an authorized investigative purpose and with sufficient factual predication.” It “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation” lay behind the FBI’s actions.

This, of course, did not matter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). He announced his conclusion before the hearing began to “CBS This Morning.”

“When he says that there’s no evidence of political bias or political motive — everybody involved in this investigation hated Donald Trump,” Graham said. “They wanted to bring down this president. I really believe that.” Graham’s beliefs mattered more than a 434-page report, the product of almost two years of work.

Worse were Barr’s attacks on his own department’s inspector general and his furthering of Trump’s conspiracy theories — Barr called the FBI’s effort to unmask Russian influence a “travesty” — along with a highly unusual public statement from Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham.

Handpicked by Barr to undertake yet another investigation of the Trump investigation, Durham said his office had advised Horowitz that “we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.” Horowitz said Wednesday he was “surprised” by Durham’s statement in light of his own interactions with him.


As for Trump, he attacked his own appointee, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, who said he accepted Horowitz’s conclusions, including criticisms of his own agency. Trump wasn’t happy, tweeting about Wray: “With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI.” This was either a threat to fire Wray or an attempt to pressure the director to think twice about any future steps that might hurt Trump’s image. One way or the other, it was a corrupt effort to, well, put the “fix” in.

Slowly, gradually, but inexorably, our country is accepting the unacceptable. We thought we had a consensus about basic norms that protect freedom and self-government. That consensus has been swept away by Republican partisans who value political power over the constitutional liberties they have always claimed to revere above everything else.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...2481b4-1c5a-11ea-87f7-f2e91143c60d_story.html

The Republicans are slowly pushing America into becoming a dictatorship. It's happening so slowly that many Americans don't even see it. This is especially true as there are multiple things happening at one time. For example, William Barr and his attacks on the rule of law and how he is part of this right-wing Christian counterrevolution in America. Yes, Trump is impeached, and that is a type of pushback against him and his forces. What judges are doing to slow down Trump’s agenda is very important too. It is very important to not give up because that is what authoritarians want the public to do.

Authoritarian leaders want you to believe that resistance is futile and that you should just give up. If we give up and resign ourselves to the conclusion that impeaching Trump is not going to have an effect, then he has won. Impeachment is extremely important because it will be on the record, marked in the history books as opposition to Trump and his agenda.

 

[allison22]

Yes, Trump openly displays that he is scum and bent on destroying the United States at the direction of Vladimir Putin--and the board Trumpettes here are supporting him in this endeavor.

Trump's goal is to leave people so confused about the truth that they are more and more dependent on Trump's word. Trump may capitalize on some horrible event happening to the United States. Donald Trump has made some very scary declarations that the way to unite a country is through some catastrophe. Trump says that he hopes such a horrible thing does not happen but that is the way a leader can unite the county. Donald Trump has stripped anti-terrorism programs of their resources. He has defunded many national security programs that combat terrorism. If a calamity took place, Donald Trump would use it to declare martial law or some type of ongoing national emergency.

 

[allison22]

Trump has pardoned and celebrated the most notorious war criminals in the U.S. military, opening an avenue for sadistic killers to indiscriminately torture prisoners and murder civilians, knowing they can appeal to the president to escape any accountability for their crimes.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, in the pardon power, Trump has found a loophole that allows him to negate the entire military code of conduct.


Trump’s disdain for human rights and international law explains his longstanding admiration for dictators. This is a man who 30 years ago criticized the Chinese communist party for waiting too long to suppress the demonstrations at Tiananmen Square, and defended Vladimir Putin’s iron hand: “He’s running his country and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country,” Trump said in 2015.

Trump seems to begin with the premise that bullies, sadists and authoritarians are natural-born leaders, and that diplomats, scholars and human rights advocates are somehow fools and weaklings who should never be allowed into government.

Of course Trump wants to make the United States more like Russia, and less like our traditional Western allies!! Why side with the foolish and weak when we can instead cast our lot with the clever and strong?

 

[bodysong]

February 14, 2020

The attorney general, while a political appointee, is bound
first and foremost not to the whims and personal interests
of the president, but to the law.

Representative Thomas Jenckes, the Rhode Island congressman
who led the charge to establish the Department of Justice in 1870,
underscored the importance of federal lawyers who would act
independently of politicians:

“The humblest servant of the Government should not be at the
mercy or the caprice of the most distinguished politician,”
he said in an address in Boston in 1868. “Let every man
who may receive a commission from the United States
know that he holds it from the people, in service of
the people.”

Barr never seems to have gotten that message.

It’s hard to imagine having more compelling evidence
of a DOJ that is at the mercy of the president’s personal
interests.

Viewed through the rearview mirror, Barr’s insistence in his
January 2019 Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing
that he could “provide the leadership necessary to protect the
independence and the reputation” of the DOJ is downright
laughable.

The Saturday Night Massacre-

"...people of conscience and professional principle at the
DOJ unwilling to carry out the president’s bidding."

We may not have such a person at the helm of the Justice
Department, but they do exist in Washington.

(AG Bill ) Barr must go — and Congress must push him out.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/02/14/opinion/william-barr-must-go/

 

[KeithD]

The House could add Barr to the next abuse of power impeachment round on Trump.

 

[allison22]

In a searing op-ed, the former head of US Special Operations Command, who supervised the 2011 Navy Seal raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden, has slammed Donald Trump’s reckless attitude towards the intelligence community saying that Americans should be afraid of the president’s actions.

Retired navy admiral William McRaven, writing in The Washington Post about the dismissal of director of national intelligence Joe Maguire, decries the fact that Mr. Maguire was apparently ousted simply for doing his job – the dissemination of intelligence to elected officials.

He writes: “As Americans, we should be frightened – deeply afraid for the future of the nation. When good men and women can’t speak the truth, when facts are inconvenient, when integrity and character no longer matter, when presidential ego and self-preservation are more important than national security – then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/very-afraid-admiral-oversaw-bin-144621630.html

 

[Schlank]

Trump is preparing the ground for a totalitarian dictatorship


Trump has put himself in the position of parceling out the key resources needed during the virus outbreak, and there is evidence he is rewarding Republican states with more essential supplies and shorting Democratic states. Like the cheap autocrat with a bad hairdo that he is, Trump demands subservience and praise from political leaders around the country in return for equitable treatment by the federal government.

But perhaps most remarkably, Trump is using the strictures necessary to control the virus as a form of participation in mass passivity. In her classic book, “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” Hannah Arendt pointed to fear of terror as a tool used by totalitarian regimes to control populations.

“Only where great masses are superfluous or can be spared without disastrous results of depopulation is totalitarian rule, as distinguished from a totalitarian movement, at all possible,” Arendt wrote. For “depopulation” read “deaths,” and with victims of the virus in the tens of thousands and potentially headed for more than a million, Trump has his hands on one of the key levers of totalitarian rule. You can see it nightly on his face. People talk about Trump’s “lack of empathy,” but as the bodies pile up, I think what we see in Trump is the delight of a dictator in the making. For every dead body wheeled into the back of a refrigerated truck, Trump sees a hundred frightened voters who can be manipulated into adoration of their fearless leader.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/tr...n-dictatorship/?utm_source=push_notifications

 

[Jesus_Ateo]

American Democracy May Be Dying


Wisconsin, like most of the country, is under a stay-at-home order. So why did Republican legislators, eventually backed by the Republican appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court, insist on holding an election as if the situation were normal?

The answer is that the state shutdown had a much more severe impact on voting in Democratic-leaning urban areas, where a great majority of polling places were closed, than in rural or suburban areas. So the state G.O.P. was nakedly exploiting a pandemic to disenfranchise those likely to vote against it.

What we saw in Wisconsin, in short, was a state party doing whatever it takes to cling to power even if a majority of voters want it out — and a partisan bloc on the Supreme Court backing its efforts. Donald Trump, as usual, said the quiet part out loud: If we expand early voting and voting by mail, “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”

Does anyone seriously doubt that something similar could happen, very soon, at a national level?

This November, it’s all too possible that Trump will eke out an Electoral College win thanks to widespread voter suppression. If he does — or even if he wins cleanly — everything we’ve seen suggests that he will use a second term to punish everyone he sees as a domestic enemy, and that his party will back him all the way. That is, America will do a full Hungary.


What if Trump loses? You know what he’ll do: He’ll claim that Joe Biden’s victory was based on voter fraud, that millions of illegal immigrants cast ballots or something like that. Would the Republican Party, and perhaps more important, Fox News, support his refusal to accept reality? What do you think?

So that’s why what just happened in Wisconsin scares me more than either disease or depression. For it shows that one of our two major parties simply doesn’t believe in democracy. Authoritarian rule may be just around the corner.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/opinion/wisconsin-primary-democracy.html

 

[hogjack]

Doctor, Doctor help me please, I know you'll understand
There's a time device inside of me, I'm a self-destructin' man
There's a red, under my bed
And there's a little green man in my head
And he said, "you're not goin' crazy, you're just a bit sad
'Cause there's a man in ya, gnawin' ya, tearin' ya into two."

Silly boy ya' self-destroyer.
Paranoia, the destroyer

The Kinks

 

[JackLuis]

Fuck Trump!

That is all!

 

[JackLuis]

‘Who cares? Let ’em get wiped out’: Stunning CNBC anchor, venture capitalist says let hedge funds fail and save Main Street

Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya stunned CNBC anchor Scott Wapner and generated widespread applause on social media by declaring in a television interview Thursday that the U.S. government should let hedge funds and billionaire CEOs “get wiped out” by the coronavirus-induced economic collapse and instead focus its attention on rescuing Main Street.

“On Main Street today, people are getting wiped out. And right now, rich CEOs are not, boards that had horrible governance are not, hedge funds are not. People are.”
—Chamath Palihapitiya, CEO of Social Capital

When Wapner, seemingly incredulous at what he was hearing, asked Palihapitiya why he would support the collapse of large companies, the Social Capital CEO said “this is a lie that’s been purported by Wall Street.”

Save People not Hedge Funds!

Doesn't he know that, "Corporations are People, my friend!"

 

[allison22]

Trump’s COVID-19 crisis has brought out his inner authoritarian — and his corruption is about to get much worse


Now that the president has completely hijacked the daily White House task force press conferences to indulge in bullying reporters, lie without restraint and preen for his fans, Patterson said all bets are off and that the president has fully unleashed his inner-authoritarian with the help of sycophants in his own administration.

“The pandemic’s grip is diminishing the president’s own. His poll numbers are slipping; critical shortages of lifesaving resources underscore his mendacity and dereliction. His maladministration has empowered incompetents such as Jared Kushner and Larry Kudlow, the sycophantic pseudo-economist who fatuously lionized Trump’s performance: ‘I know there are always a few glitches but I’d give it an A.'” Patterson wrote. “The ‘glitches’ include 15,000 dead—swiftly rising. Our economic catastrophe is turbocharging unemployment and cratering GDP with unprecedented celerity. Thousands of businesses will die; millions of Americans face fiscal ruin.”

Of even bigger concern, he writes, is Trump’s power grab as the country reels and people die.

“COVID-19 has metastasized his authoritarian pathologies. Trump’s nightly press briefings pervert a president’s obligation to inform and unify Americans in crisis —commingling grandiosity, lying, blame-shifting, and disinformation with attacks on our principal defense against untruth: an independent media,” he explained. “Exposure enrages him. Under the cover of COVID-19 Trump continues to purge those who surfaced his effort to compel Ukraine’s president to assist his reelection by slandering Joe Biden. His dismissal of the Inspector General who sent the whistleblower complaint to Congress, Michael Atkinson—an explicit act of reprisal—followed that of three witnesses in his impeachment: Alexander Vindman, Gordon Sondland, and William Taylor.”



Patterson notes that Trump appears to be on a path to making sure he is not held accountable for whatever is to come before the November election — including over attempts to subvert the will of the voters.

“Trump’s message is inescapable: Those who question his handling of COVID-19 hazard their jobs. Leaving no doubt, he has ousted the leader of a watchdog panel charged with overseeing how his administration spends trillions in pandemic relief,” he wrote. “This likely augurs a chilling politicization of pandemic relief: the misdirection of federal assistance to buttress red states, propitiate swing states, reward obeisant supplicants and punish governors who displease him.”

“But Trump’s most obvious subversion of democracy is his blatant resolve to suppress turnout in November—thereby increasing the electoral impact of his fervent supporters,” he continued by noting the president is dead-set on stopping mail-in voting when people are afraid to leave their houses due to health risks.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/tr...orse-columnist/?utm_source=push_notifications

 

[needit700]

you need serious help!!!

If anyone is trying to destroy this great nation it's Nancy and chuckie and the dems

 

[Fuzzy1975]

If anyone is trying to destroy this great nation it's Nancy and chuckie and the dems

https://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=91100102&postcount=4431

An example of the typical Trump supporter...chuckles.