So they’re not gearing up for war, but he’s going to finish what Obama didn’t by going to war against terrorists. This is the war he’s not gearing up for.
I see.
Uh huh.
Trump is an idiot and a child, not a strong, brilliant leader. He’s a bully who cries when people make fun of him on television.
I don’t think we’re talking about the same Donald Trump.
I don’t understand this post.
What I think you might be saying is: sure, people called Bush evil, and racist, but that was just ordinary political squabbling between Republicans and Democrats. Trump actually is racist and evil, for realio and trulio.
Is that it?
You tell us. What about Trump was so bad that you voted for Hillary?
How can I tell you what he meant in his post?
And “us?” Do you suffer from intestinal parasites? Are you a reigning monarch?
His disdain for the truth – actually, his utter unconcern with being caught in a lie, and his willingness to flout the established political norms.
But you may recall that I didn’t ever call my opponents evil. I’ve posted here since December 1999. You’ll search in vain for a single post in which I called Al Gore, George Bush, John Kerry, Barack Obama, John McCain, or Mitt Romney evil.
My point is that if you called any of them evil, you’ve lost a certain persuasive heft if you now wish to be believed when you say that Trump is evil. It’s clear to me that of you called any of them evil, you have such a low threshold for the use of the term as to make it meaningless.
I didn’t think it was hard to understand. And it’s definitely not hard to understand if you at least skim the two articles I linked, although it seems to me that their contents is pretty much self-evident. Did you read them? Do you disagree with anything they say? What do you disagree with?
Words like “evil” and “racist” are loaded with baggage and carry the stigma of being facile and simplistic. Is that what I said in what you quoted? Do you think those articles are facile and simplistic and use loaded terms without adequate justification? Can you cite examples?
Trump would put up such a sign denying people who don’t agree with him - he has a long record of that. Seems fitting and just in the sense what is good for the goose is good for the gander. No issue in eating there because of it - it is Trumps America.
I read both articles. Both make strong cases that Trump is sui generis as a political figure. Each uses loaded language to express hyperbolic concerns. The first makes its point by, among other things, redefining fascism to suit its goal:
In fact, fascism is “…a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.” Cite.
It’s not a historical label that fits. It’s hyperbole.
From your second link:
It’s not a tragedy for the Constitution. On the contrary, perhaps it will serve as a wake-up call for a generation of activists who insisted the Constitution meant what they wanted it to mean and not what the text said it did. More hyperbole.
Really? Long Record?
Trump owns several resorts, clubs, and restaurants. Please name the one that has or had such a sign.
Go ahead. Search all you want. We will wait.
Or are you just blabbing?
I don’t recall ever calling McCain, Romney or even GWB “evil.” Actually, I don’t recall calling Trump “evil.” (Perhaps I did, as I have worn out my thesaurus looking for words to capture how awful he is)
On the other hand, I can see some pretty strong condemnation of George W. Bush, for example, thinking the country could never stoop lower than that, and then realizing, “holy shit, yes we can.”
Trump is different, as you acknowledge. Thus, his supporters have made a decision to do something that thoughtful conservatives such as you were unwilling to do. A sign at a restaurant asking them to go somewhere else for lunch might be a wake-up call for a few that they have crossed a line that should not have been crossed. Add that to the other efforts of the resistance, and we may have a chance to save our beloved country.
Cite?
Actually I think it is a wake up call for BOTH parties to find candidates outside the normal loop. We dont vote for a person just because they have political clout.
Hillary was a “my turn” candidate. As was John McCain and Bob Dole. Really both Bill Clinton and Obama were outside the loop candidates.
And I think it is working. We are hearing from other billionaires and celebrities like Oprah who are looking into running.
Oh and maybe. Just maybe. The democrats will take a serious look at their candidate ahead of time and find someone better. Hillary made sure she had no competition even when it was obvious early on her support was limited. People were standing in line for hours to see both Bernie Sanders and Trump. For Hillary they had to bring people in to fill the seats and used canned applause and camera tricks to make it look like people supported her.
Oh and when you find a candidate, find one who will actually get their butt out there and campaign. Dont send celebrities like Beyonce.
I think you’re putting a naive amount of hope in the effectiveness of shaming a few Trump voters out of eating at a restaurant in Hawaii and burning some cars at Berkeley.
Indeed, I might have voted for McCain if he had chosen a reasonable VP candidate. And during GWB’s tenure, although I didn’t vote for him, I chastised people who called him “shrub” citing respect for the office.
Trump, on the other hand is a shitgibbon, plain and simple. He questioned the legitimacy of the democratic process during the campaign, and he has accused his predecessor of crimes with zero evidence to back up those claims. He’s an embarrasment to the country.
You make me laugh. It’s like you have a template for posts that require them to include “hyperbole” “literally” and “Hitler.”
You guys must be kidding, or must be thinking of something else other than Trump’s long record of exclusion and prejudice.
He has a comical record of canceling interviews with almost anyone for any reason (here, and here, for instance – the latter a filmmaker kicked out of Trump tower when he was heard speaking Spanish). He has an almost unbelievable record of suing and being sued that so far amounts to more than 3500 lawsuits which includes lawsuits against virtually anybody that has publicly said anything bad about him.
He has called Mexicans criminals and rapists and killers and characterized refugees and Muslims as undesirables in the stark terms of “we don’t want them here”. He was sued (twice) by the Justice Department for refusing to rent to blacks and the New York Times uncovered “a long history of racial bias at his family’s properties, in New York and beyond”.
Is that enough for a start?
I’m glad you read them, seriously – no snark. I think they’re insightful commentaries. So now you explicitly acknowledge here that we’re dealing with something entirely new and unprecedented. Whether the articles constitute “hyperbole” can only be truly known in the fullness of time and the perspective of history.
I could spend a great deal of time citing specific facts to back up the view that the articles are in no way hyperbolic, but most of us already know many of the facts and perhaps our perceptions are colored by our political convictions, and the New Yorker’s editor and one of their principal staff writers have already expressed the sentiments better than I could.
We can point to past history as examples of how rights and freedoms can be degraded and reality distorted in a systematic web of lies, but the inevitable counter-argument is that the circumstances are not exactly the same, because circumstances never are, and that the comparison is therefore “hyperbole”. We’ll just have to let history be the judge, but certainly, any rational person would have to acknowledge that there is much to be concerned about and that there are very significant risks to basic liberties, common decency, and the principles that the constitution is supposed to protect.
No. None of that appears to support the original claim, which I’ll repeat again just so we’re all clear:
Are we arguing about whether he’s a bigot who appears to be irredeemably prejudiced against blacks, Mexicans, and Muslims, and who has absolutely zero tolerance for anyone who is critical of him, and whether there is not abundant evidence to that effect, or are we arguing about whether or not he has ever posted a sign of some sort in a restaurant window?
Because you know what? I don’t know if he’s ever posted a sign and I don’t care. I do care about the basic nature of his character. He may not have put up a sign excluding political opponents from a restaurant, but he put up an EO excluding a whole swath of humanity from entry into the US – ordinary tourists, desperate refugees, and highly qualified immigrants alike – and has sued his enemies and critics with a reckless vengeance. Are you possibly being a tiny bit disingenuous about what this argument is really about?
Yes, I acknowledge that explicitly here and now, but it’s not the first time I’ve expressed that view. Back on January 20th, to pick one of many examples, I said:
Again I draw your attention to the comment I made to BobLibDem concerning how Bush was called a fascist and a racist and a would-be dictator. Do you recall those accusations during the Bush presidency?
Mexican isn’t even a so-called “race.” It’s a nationality.