Regardless of whether it’s apocryphal or not, it carries a great deal of truth.
Exhibit A:
Not even the ones with live goldfish in them?
The thing is, they could have wrecked Heemeyer wholesale had they had access to actual anti-tank weapons. But they’re not in the usual police arsenal, so they had to basically wait him out. Same thing when that loon stole the M60 tank from the NG armory in 1994 or so. Easily destructible by the actual military, but police aren’t equipped for that sort of thing.
What would worry me would be various sorts of IEDs that these fat, out of shape couch potatoes might think up and emplace.
The “wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross” thing only halfway applies to Trump though. The fact is that he’s a fundamentally secular figure, and he has paid only the most minimal, half-assed lip service to any kind of religious observance. He has lived, and continues to live, as a hedonistic libertine; he is a creature of New York, not the Bible Belt or the “heartland.” The people with fascist tendencies who are conservative Christians still love him. He wasn’t carrying the cross, but they don’t care.
That’s almost more dangerous. The religious conservatives have convinced themselves that Trump is on their side. So have the right wing non religious groups. It’s a lovely cocktail.
You’re correct, but not only is Trump an immoral, unprincipled non-religious hedonist, he’s equally a traitorous self-serving swindler who would – and who has – happily throw his country under the bus for personal gain. Not only is he not a patriot, he may even face charges related to outright treachery. But that quote isn’t supposed to imply sincerity. As with Trump, the claim to patriotism and religious piety can be entirely hypocritical. The important point is that the flag and the cross, figuratively, is how you get the rubes hooked.
I think if that were true, Ted Cruz would be our president. It’s not exactly that he used the flag and the cross to hook anyone. He hooked them by reaching far back past the point of the flag and the cross…back to the time of gladiators, human sacrifice, warlords and concubines. There’s a reason they call such yearnings “base.” They are, indeed, the base. How do you move something? By its base.
I’m not really closely familiar with that slimeball’s political career, but I tend to think of Ted Cruz as a would-be con-man who’s just not very good at it, whereas Trump has been practicing his con-artist schtick his entire life. The man lies with the ease of one who doesn’t even know or care what a lie is, and it works. It’s amazing because he’s such a complete idiot. Cruz is far smarter but absolutely lacking in charisma and really very unlikable. To borrow a phrase from Dave Barry, he always looks like he’s just been booked on charges of molesting a sheep. He could never build a base like Trump has among the ignorati.
I think the difference between Cruz and Trump lies in who they’re conning. Cruz has worked in politics throughout his adult life. Politicians hear bullshit every day and know it when they see it. Trump is a political outsider; his career was based on finding stupid people and conning them. Comparing the two men, I’d argue that Cruz is a better con man but Trump has been a more successful con man.
Cruz is Trump’s bitch. He’s still doing Trump’s bidding and licking his boots after Trump publicly attacked his family.
I’m convinced someone (probably Russia) has some serious dirt on Cruz, and several other similar senators, and has used that to get them on board with supporting Trump. Nothing else so perfectly explains how all of them flipped so completely, even when Trump has attacked them personally, as you noted.
It also explains why Cruz, et al. seem to prefer staying as senators - that’s the best long-term position for a foreign agent. A compromised President is only useful for at most 8 years, a senator can be there for decades. And as Mitch has shown, can sometimes have more actual power than anyone else in the government.
“Pretty much”? Not really. Fascism has come to America. Fascism coming to America does not meant that we live in a fascist state, it just means that it has come.
So, it can never happen here?
That would be fascism coming to America, right there. So, you pretty much said the same thing as Smapti.
It’s been thwarted momentarily. I see no evidence of its demise.
They took a minor temporary setback. I’m reminded of the quote, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.”
There are many in congress who would happily sign onto fascism, there is an outgoing president who won once on fascism, and even though lost the second time, still had nearly 75 million vote to support his fascism. The state legislatures are chock full of fascism supporters.
Maybe they will call themselves neo-fascists, or nationalists, or even just Republicans, but the core idea of fascism, that of a “far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy” is unfortunately very alive and strong in this country.
There is something that happened towards the end of 2016 primary season that doesn’t get mentioned much, but I think it’s important in understanding Trumps relationship with Cruz, and congresscritters in general.
The National Enquirer ran an expose of Ted Cruz’s five mistresses. For some reason the story failed to gain traction but I think it was Trump’s warning shot across the bow of Congress.
My theory is that most male congressmen ( who knows, maybe the females, too) cheat on their wives while in Washington and all the insiders know this. As long as they choose their partners from a group of aides and associates that know how to be discreet and as long as they don’t flaunt the relationship - everyone looks the other way. Because they all do it and they are healthy virile men whose jobs require them to live away from their wives for extended periods of time. Boys will be boys let he who is without sin cast the first stone and all that. It’s accepted practice, and unless they get extraordinarily unlucky (Hi Gary Condit ! ), they get away with it.
Until Trump went there. I maintain that this wasn’t just a shot at Cruz’s reputation but a warning to all of them, a show of force demonstrating what he was willing to do, the norms he would break to grab and retain power.
And I think it worked. Some of them, like Lindsey, needed a customized reminder ( I don’t doubt that Trump has dirt on Lady G, but I think it’s from the National Enquirer days, not Russia)
I think that for the most part Trump has retained congressional support via the voting power of his base, but I think he obtained it initially via blackmail, whether direct or indirect.
So, you’re saying Satan is real?
No, that is very much not what I am saying. If you read the other 90% of my post that you chose not to quote, that could clear up any possible confusion you may have as to what I actually did say.
Or, maybe it’s because he’s the President. When he became the nominee (or even the presumptive nominee), Republicans were faced with a choice - support him, oppose him, or duck and cover. There’s a perfectly normal political calculus that leads to supporting him.
Republican politicians might have supported him out of a calculation (or miscalculation) of personal interest, party loyalty, partisan/tribal instinct, a genuine (if misguided or even delusional) conviction that Democrats and Democratic policies posed a clear and present danger to the very fabric of American society, a perception of Trump as a useful idiot who they could use for their own ends, or most likely, some combination of the above.
Groundless speculation about blackmail material or subornation by foreign powers is just toxic. Somehow, it’s not enough that our political opponents be reasonably mistaken, or misguided, or ignorant, or even stupid. People on both sides seem to have convinced themselves that the Other Folks must be actively evil, engaged in nefarious secret plots with shady conspirators. Often suitably foreign or otherwise Othered conspirators. At best, they are dupes and foils of such conspiracies. And at that point, there is no negotiating, no compromise, and no real possibility of day-to-day governing. Because the Other Side is evil.
Or maybe they’re just flawed human beings, some honest, some corrupt, most somewhere in-between, doing their best in a complex and messy world, and sometimes making bad decisions. Sometimes spectacularly bad ones.
That doesn’t go a long way towards explaining the continued support for him now that he lost the election. I really cannot buy the notion that all these Republicans pretending Trump didn’t lose the election actually believe that, or that objecting to electoral votes on January 6 is either an appropriate application of the law (it is not) or has a chance of succeeding (it doesn’t.) Many are now claiming Mike Pence has the power to unilaterally reject electoral votes out of hand, which is quite clearly not what the Constitution says are which is transparently stupid, since it would mean elections were pointless.
So, why? Trump lost; he will be out of office just past noon on January 20. Loyalty to him is no longer of any value.
The value is that the rubes will vote for them because they supported their Messiah.
I see that being true in the short term, but there aren’t any short term elections. The next midterms are two years away and I am quite convinced the rubes’ interest in Trump will have significantly waned - and some of the worst bootlickers aren’t up for re-election until 2024 or 2026.
I’m not convinced. These are the same people who still actually believe Obama is a Secret Muslim who was born in Kenya. In two years, four years, or twenty years they’ll still believe that the election was stolen from Trump.