I’m not sure that you do get it.
What has the President done in the last 9 1/2 months to “destroy our democracy”?
If they break criminal laws, then I have no problem with them being held to account for any laws they may break.
In the course of doing their jobs, they should not be breaking laws, and if they are, their employer should be assisting in the investigation and prosecution.
If charges are fabricated and trumped up, or if laws or EO’s are passed, or if laws are interpreted in ways that they never have been before, in order to silence those voices that would question this administration, I would not support that, would you?
Okay, I guess that makes sense on the level of I can tell you’re trying the “I know you are but what am I?” defense. Beyond that, no, actually; that ain’t my jam.
I am positive that you don’t get it.
If someone comes to your building, removes the sprinkler system, wires explosives to the supports, and parks a bulldozer next to it, has he destroyed your building?
I would say that he is destroying my building, you would say, “What have they done to destroy our building?”
He is doing his best to undermine the underpinnings of our democracy. He is trying to discredit the press, a fairly important part of democracy, as an uninformed public can’t make decisions in a democracy. He is putting a chilling effect on expressions of free speech, as well as upon the media for asking tough questions, or running unflattering stories.
That he has not succeeded, yet, is thanks to ample bulwarks against tyranny that our country has developed. But those bulwarks are not perfect, they don’t defend themselves. They need vigilance. And he steps through one bulwark after another, and as I see this, and warn that danger is near, you laugh and pretend that everything is normal, everything is fine.
You tell me, what step would be a step too far in your opinion? What action would he have to take before you stand up and see that there is real danger to our democracy in the works?
Is there any step at all, as long as he remains within the “rule of law” as twisted as the law needs to be to accommodate? Will you at least take a second glance when he does break actual laws?
No one wakes up and realizes that their country turned into a tyrann over night. It takes time and effort. Looking back in a few years, will you wish that maybe you had done something to stem the takeover before it was too late, or will you join and rejoice in the new order?
Speaking of military officers’ feelings about Trump:
General Kelly is in the minority of military officers, it appears. The majority of military officers view Trump unfavorably. That makes me (a former Navy officer) feel quite a bit better.
“Trump has repeatedly demonstrated his fascist and authoritarian bona fides. He has threatened to limit freedom of the press; promised to imprison his political rivals; encouraged violence by his followers; disregarded standing norms and traditions of American democracy; advocated for the United States to violate international law; used racism and nativism in the form of white identity politics and hostility toward the Other to win the presidential election by mobilizing racially resentful and bigoted white voters; proposed policies that violate the constitutional rights of Muslims, Arabs, Hispanics, Latinos and African-Americans; placed radical ideologues in key senior leadership positions; and fabricated a narrative of personal victimhood for himself (and by implication the United States) as a means of justifying his plans to restore “greatness” to the country and (white) Americans.”
I hope you’re right.
With the caveat that Bricker already highlighted about lawbreaking, yeah sure, if Trump writes some sort of a “shut down CNN for reasons” EO, I’ll condemn it. Hell, I’ll meet you at your place and help build a truck bomb, or whatever you want to do to fight back. I’ll even supply the rifles and ammo if you’re really committed.
A good bit more towards the “jailing reporters for doing their jobs” side than the press-secretary-thinks-that’s-highly-inappropriate side.
The press secretary is speaking for the POTUS, and only doing that. We don’t care what she “thinks,” and that is not the meaning of the statement in the context of the WHPS adddressing the media. Saying “I think” from that position has meaning for the white house policy. She has to get a clue.
If she thinks just talking out of her ass and expressing some half assed opinion is doing her job, we need another WHPS.
No, what has the President done, not said, promised, or advocated?
Has he limited freedom of the press? Shut down CNN? Has he jailed his political opponents? Has he violated international law?
Presidents “do” by speaking, as well as sometimes not speaking, acting, lobbying, bullying, shaking hands, lot’s of things. All americans, even socialist and communist americans, liberals, hillary voters, and everyone else, all have a right to expect that the POTUS is aware of this before he takes office.
Are you are saying that his words have no meaning? Did Obamas words have no meaning?
Sorry man, I don’t think this is a great analogy. Now, it’s more like “someone comes to your building, says they are going to remove the sprinkler system, brags that he can wire explosives to the supports and that no one will care, and says he’s going to get a bulldozer that the buildings inhabitants are going to pay for and he is going to park it next to the building” then no, he is not destroying the building. It’s not even close.
When any of the things he constantly rambles on about in twitter and interviews and such actually happen. You know he just talks to hear himself talk, and doesn’t really even understand what he is saying half the time. Don’t freak out when more gibberish about taking away licenses or locking up reporters or whatever comes out of his mouth.
Seriously, sometimes you all DO sound like the “Obama gonna take my guns!!!” crowd from a few years ago.
Okay, let’s say that that’s all it is so far, talk. This is the CEO of a demolition company doing the talking, not just some random person.
If it’s just talk, then it’s threats. He is threatening to destroy our building (our democracy), and he is in a position to do so unless we remain vigilant, and take active measures at times to prevent him from doing so.
Difference is, Trump said he wanted to jail reporters, Obama never said he wanted to take their guns.
I am believing what the president is saying when he says what he wants to do, people that thought that obama was going to take their guns were making it up.
Words either have meaning or they don’t. It is not some random person spouting nonsense, it is the person elected to the highest office in the land. The words that come out of his mouth matter. The words that come out of his spokesperson’s mouth matter.
You believe THIS president when he says stuff? Come on.
People, and Presidents, say a LOT of things. Especially THIS President. I don’t believe he is going to do anything that he says about anything. I don’t believe politicians in NORMAL times when they say stuff. I’m definitely not going to start believing mere words from THIS President.
That’s Trump’s decision to make, not yours, isn’t it?
I’ve dealt with many liars in my life.
I’ve learned to never believe them when they say they are going to do something for someone else.
I’ve learned to always believe them when they say they are going to do something for themself.
Because this is a compound question, I’ll answer its component parts separately:
If laws or EO’s are passed in order to silence those voices that would question this administration, I would probably not support that, but it would really depend on the details of the laws in question – specifically, whether the laws had some other valid purpose and the claim that their ‘real’ purpose was to silence voices was itself open to reasonable disagreement. For example, we might imagine an Executive Order that denies federal funds to organizations that promote abortion, and a claim that the real purpose of the law is to punish organizations that have spoken out against the administration. Because the order has a valid purpose and the claim of retaliation is speculative, I would probably support that order.
If charges are fabricated and trumped up in order to silence those voices that would question this administration, I would not support that and would speak out against it.
If laws are interpreted in ways that they never have been before in order to silence those voices that would question this administration, I would probably not support that but, again, the details would be important.
For example, under the Clean Air Act (CAA), 42 U.S.C. § 7521, the EPA is permitted to regulate pollutants. For years, this was interpreted to mean pollutants such as particulate matter or gases that were not naturally present. Then the EPA started interpreting that same language to include carbon dioxide. This is an example of interpreting a law in a way it had never been before, but I’ll wager that you favored that change. So I’m unwilling to condemn mere new interpretation; I’d want to know details about the new view first, especially the question of whether or not the the ostensible claim that the change was intended to silence voices was the only goal, or whether it was a side effect of an otherwise justifiable reading.
I reserve violent revolution for the day that free and fair elections are cancelled. Until then, I will use the non-violent and legal methods at my disposal to prevent that day from coming.
As the only good line in the movie “Welcome to Sarajevo” said, “Are we going up, or down, that scale?”
I would be against such an order, but because I disagree with it politically, not because I feel it would be illegal. The fed govt has the right to not give funds to causes it no longer wishes to support. I would petition that they change their minds, but I would see no legal remedy in it. Even if it were shown to be retaliatory, that just makes the people who did so shitty people, but not law breakers.
I see it as different in performing punitive acts against other organizations for expressing themselves in ways the federal govt did not like.
It is difficult to tell exactly what trump’s move would be. He has expressed interest in doing several things that, at this time, are denied to him. He wants to pull the licenses of the broadcasters that criticize him. That that desire is not just not legally possible, but not physically possible doesn’t mean that that’s not the effect that he desires. He wants to “open up the libel laws”, even though that makes no sense, and the only way to do anything like what he wants would be, IMHO, a true assault on the 1st if he were to be able to get anywhere with that desire.
Every step he has taken has left most of us aghast, as that is a step that no other president had taken, and we all assumed that that was because such actions were verboten. Now that we are discovering that the other presidents didn’t do these acts, not because they were forbidden, but because the presidents were decent people who would not do those things, I find myself worried about other loopholes that can be exploited to pull the threads out from our democratic way of life.
I can’t say what his next move would be, as I thought that the last moves that he took were things that were illegal. So, I don’t know what avenues he can channel his anti-democratic desires into that can manifest themselves, but I am sure I will be shocked and dismayed, not just that he did it, but that he was allowed to do it.
I hope so, I really do. But my concern is that the charges that I see as completely fabricated and only for the purpose of silencing dissent, many others may see as perfectly reasonable.
I was actually against that reinterpretation, not because I think it is a bad idea, but because I know it gave more fuel to the anti-regulation peoples, and because it could be easily overturned by the next administration. (And not trying to get into this here, but other pollutants that the EPA has had no pushback in regulating like sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, and lead are also particulate matter and gases that were naturally present, so CO[sub]2[/sub] was new, but wasn’t any sort of deviation from the pattern of other pollutants, so I don’t really see it as a new way of interpreting the law.) In fact, I didn’t really like most of Obama’s EO’s specifically for that reason. Some of them were things that really needed to be done, and congress was unable to act, so they were useful from that perspective, but the ease of reversal concerned me, which turned out to be a warranted concern.
But, basically, what I am hearing, is if they can come up with a reasonable enough excuse, that even if it is pretty obvious to all and sundry that it was just an excuse, as long as it has a stated goal other than silencing them, it’d be all good. Personally, I’d feel that I was being gaslighted in that situation, but as long as they get their t’s dotted and i’s crossed, a substantial portion of the populace will accept such things as being reasonable.
That’s just it. What moves has he taken that you think were illegal? Just spouting off nonsense is not a “move” nor is it “illegal”
At the very begining, I though that him not divesting himself of his holdings would not be legal, as that would be a conflict of interest, then I found that that’s not ilegal.
Then with his violation of the emolument’s clause, I thought it would be illegal for the president to be receiving moneys through his properties from foreign govts, but apparently that’s just fine.
Things like demanding loyatly from the FBI director, and firing him when he didn’t get it.
Whatever was up with his closed door meeting in the white house with russian officials, where he shared israeli intelligence with them.
Whtaever this is, just shouldn’t be legal. 
Just deleting the tweets that he has sent is probably illegal.
I did think that there were some consequences for a president blatantly lying to the people. I thought there were some consequences for a president implying threats to civilians who choose to protest gov’t actions.
I was wrong. There are fewer checks on his ability to abuse the office than I had thought. That is what concerns me. That the next thing that he does that I never would have thought he would do, because no president has done that before will shock and disturb me as well, because I would have thought the reason that presidents didn’t do that is because they weren’t allowed to.
As I said, democracy requires vigilance. When he is breaking the law by throwing all the political dissidents into prison is too late. We need to let the admin know that this behavior is unacceptable (highly inappropriate) now, rather than waiting until we can actually complain about him being a tyrant.
But, more than that, which is my entire point, is that presidents don’t act like this. They are given great power, they are the sole holder of that power, and as such, are supposed to use it responsibly. He has not. He has used his power to enrich himself, and to consolidate power to himself. That the way he is behaving is not illegal is a problem. It didn’t use to be a problem.