Is it copyrighted?
Otherwise I’d like to steal portions of it.
If you have something to add to this thread, please do so. Don’t try and fucking read my mind. I’m fine with the reality that he may be reelected, but I’m disappointed in my fellow Americans for doing so.
The more indefensible the Republican party gets, the more you become like octopus, with bullshit drive-by posts. Why don’t you put up a good reason why he shouldn’t be removed from office, or step up and say he should be removed. If you think he should be removed, then contact your senator. If you don’t, start a thread and put up an honest defense and answer those who honestly engage with you.
Don’t be such a fucking tool. Add some value for a change – you used to occasionally do so.
So, in summary, fuck off. That last sentence in your post really reveals what an asshole you are. Re-read my OP for comprehension this time, asshole.
Well, then, whoever had the pooper scooper job today is falling down on the job.
Um, I could do a thorough version if I had caffeine in my system. It’s just that there’s so much.
I’m not a Trump voter (I went third party in 2016,) but I’ll give it a stab:
I think Trump’s election was good for the American political system in the same way that Appalachian State beating Michigan was good for college football. Every once in a while - whether it’s sports, politics, the arts or business - you need to have an underdog totally shock the system and let everyone see that what is improbable to happen, can actually happen. There are limits to this, of course - we don’t want a Nazi president, or a pro-Hitler movie to win the Oscars - but any system tends to stagnate after a while if it’s always the favored establishment winning. Having 20-point underdogs win, helps shake up Vegas and stir the pool.
Another benefit to Trump winning is that it finally has forced America to say many things out loud that were previously buried and hidden. One Trump voter I know of put it on Facebook this way: “The Romans used to say, ‘in wine, there is truth.’ Trump is the ‘wine’ that has made all Americans now say things out loud.” Whether it’s Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives, the Trump Effect has been to uncover people’s motives and thoughts and make them public. Some of it is ugly, some of it is very ugly, but the honesty can be refreshing. Whether it’s racism, a hatred of flyover America, a desire for tyranny or the squelching of one’s opponents, one’s desire for violence, or disdain for rural folk or Christians or Mexicans or whatever - it’s more open now. It’s also made bias all the more overt - Fox News and MSNBC, etc. are now all the more visibly skewed in favor of their preferred sides.
There’s also a whole lot less apathy in American politics now. Say what you like about Trump - positive or negative - but it’s really revved up the American civic spirit. People - on both sides - are voting now like their lives depend on it. People are examining, thinking, reflecting on things really seriously. We may never see low voter turnout in a US presidential election again.
As a conservative, Trump has also given me some things I hoped to see - conservative judge appointments, a call for more transparency in healthcare billing, arms sales to US allies, some reduction in taxes, more oil drilling, robust defense spending, confrontation with China over trade - although it’s true that most mainstream Republicans could or would have done the same, and Trump’s amoral or ignorant approach to many things has also cost some conservative causes dearly - such as abandoning the Kurds, running up the deficit, cozying up to dictators like Putin and Kim, etc.
Finally, in an “emperor’s new clothes” situation, you need someone who is willing to stand up and say that the emperor’s clothes aren’t real. Trump came *close *to doing that, but not quite, or not enough - indeed, sometimes he *himself *is the emperor - but a considerable chunk of America has been longing for a “tell it like it is” candidate. That was one reason for his crazed popularity at the start of his campaign. He may not be that candidate himself, but he may usher in a successive wave of tell-it-like-it-is politicians.
You are confusing “gloating” with “laughing at”.
I hope it’s OK to point out that you are a moron, even though it is something I learned from your posts.
Don’t be stupid - you aren’t going to honestly engage with anybody.
You’re screaming at the sky. Have fun.
Regards,
Shodan
Out of curiosity, when did you change from “snarky conservative who nonetheless often puts effort into posts to engage in discussion and exchange of ideas” into “snarky conservative who never puts effort into posts to engage in discussion and exchange of ideas, but rather just fires off lazy snark and pretty much nothing else”? I’m pretty sure you’ll put the blame entirely on others rather than yourself, but I’m curious as to who you blame and when these people said these things that they are to blame for.
Totally!
I don’t want to bore my grandkids (circa 2050) with a wall of text…I’m sure they’ll use this to easily research more atrocities.
This is rich coming from you – half of your cites don’t back up what you’re claiming when you’re pretending to debate. Having you say that I don’t honestly engage is pretty high praise, coming you – clearly, it’s opposite day every day in your world.
In short, as we say in New York, fuck you, you fucking fuck. You’ve become useless as a poster since you can’t defend what your favorite team is up to. All you do is snark and drive-by. Maybe you should re-evaluate your favorite team.
I’m very curious on how you define a conservative.
I have been posting on the SDMB for a long time. Shodan has always been just one rung above troll. I’ve never observed him putting any effort into anything.
No, what the fuck are YOU talking about?..
Here’s the OP, asking for better Trump defenders:
That’s what I thought we were discussing and what you were offering to play devil’s advocate about. If not, then my apologies for incorrectly assuming you were responding to the OP and not the subsequent post downstream.
Fair enough. My memory is a little different, but memories can be wrong.
I don’t see anything in there about HRC. Granted, at the time I had that subsequent post downstream in mind — but (a) I thought it just clarified what the OP had in mind in the post that you copy-and-pasted, spelling out just which “plausible defense” was intended; and (b) even putting that aside, I still don’t see that the OP’s first post involves HRC or requires one to take a position on HRC or whatever.
(I still did, of course, because, well, you asked and I sure am obliging.)
I assumed the obvious - the choice was Trump or HRC. So if anybody was going to defend Trump, it would have to be in contrast to the most likely other choice at the time. I had not considered a write in vote as an alternative worth debating in this context.
But I’m okay to let this line of argument drop. You’ve been most obliging.
Aaawwwwww, you had a puppy? You know we have norms around here, even in the Pit, so let’s make with the pics, toot sweet, capisce?
Ditto.
That said: “Free rein.”
The only thing that could be good for college football would be ceasing to exist.
Other than that, your analogy is spot on. 
in re: the OP
That should be the Lionel Hutz trophy…
You went third party? Yeah, you’re a giant pretentious poseur.
We have a rapist on the SCOTUS whose hundreds of thousands of debts were paid off by somebidy----but you’re gushing as if the White House got new carpet. We DO have a Nazi president, you simpering gibbering walking hemorrhoid. We have Nazis marching in the goddamned streets, running fir office under the GOP flag, and soon we will have no allies left, the way Trump atracks or abandons them. Trump has spoken of ending NATO. Tell me, moron, who benefits if NATO is dissolved? Who benefits when America has no allies left?
MSNBC and Fox news are not remotely the same, you gaping sphincter. Fox is lying for Trump, 24/7. Just reporting the facts by MSNBC threatens the GOP. If you cannot see the difference you are too stupid to live.
“Honesty can be refreshing.”
Says the asshole who obviously never was at risk of James Allen Fields mowing you down. Women, POC, immigrants, Muslims, and LGBTQ folks-----all targets of white boy “honesty”---- could have told you for years what bigots think. Somehow I get the feeling you never asked or cared.
You’ve been too busy jerking off over how intellectual you are and how fresh and EXCITING Nazis killing people are, how novel it is that abortion is going to be taken away, how nifty it is that lying is now accepted, and how wonderful false equivalency is!
If I hit somebody over the head with my seventy-year-old gazillion-pound cast iron skillet, you’d call it cooking.
“But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”
There are no “both sides” here, you lying self indulgent selfish shit stain. The fact that you can airily wave off the caging of children, the sadism, the banning of whole religions, the fucking Nazi sympathizers in the White House, the two times Trump invited Russian operatives—while barred US press into the Oval Office----the constant felation of Putin, the goddamned lies, plus too much to recount here-----with smug, “let them eat cake,” smarm says to me that you don’t give a shit about anybody but white men, who are insulated from the horrors of Trump.
Shades of Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore, and all the other self indulfent assholes who think of suffering amd revolution as spectator sports. Sarandon does voice overs for an anti-death penalty series on a cable network; Moore’s been a rich scumbag for so long it’s almost funny the way he keeps up the pretense.
Conservative judge appointments? You mean unqualified nutjobs who hate women, POC, and LGBTQ, to judge by their comments? Judges who’ve never tried a case? “A call for more transparency in medical billing”? We needed to elect this monumental asshole for that?! It’s just another idiotic promise like, “build that wall!” Arms sales to US allies----you mean, only if they slander his rivals? Reduction in taxes-----if you’re rich. More oil drilling without regulation at huge cost to the environment, you mean? Increased defense spending----like when he stole money from military bases for his stupid wall? And do you call it “confrontation” when Trump starts an absolutely idiotic tariff war that hurts American farms and businesses?
You are a walking syphilis lesion with pretenses of humanity. Michelle Bachmann looks warm and kind and actually sensible next to you, where most of the time she looks like her human skin suit zipper itches because her hubby’s taking a little longer than usual seasoning her rat snacks, thanks to that extra xanax.