Yeah, the post I made was confusing, again Arnold only appears as a supporter of the #MaskingForAFriend campaign, but looking at the cite it is clear that the quote is not from Arnold but from Bruce Lee… * 
And to clear up things more, **DirtyHippy **linked to what the heck a Muffin fan is.
I disagree – it’s the conservative insanity that beget Trump.
I’m not necessarily directing this at anyone here, but so many people get it wrong when they look at the Trump era. Everything that we hate about America right now is directed at Trump first, and we blame much less than we should his enablers in the congress, in state legislatures, in conservative media, in churches, in business, and in society. They are all to blame - and so, too, are those who have been in denial over the years. We all share some blame for what we’re looking at right now and no, I’m not necessarily giving myself a pass either.
Our lack of education, but more so our polarization along racial, cultural, religious, gender, and political lines has given us Trump, and unless things change, we’ll get something much worse in a few years time.
Bingo.
It’s ironic that Republicans are complaining about social media considering how they’ve weaponized it to create factions and give them out-sized voice and power. I guess they just want to have a virtual monopoly on how to weaponize it for themselves and against others.
Don’t be surprised if, God forbid, Trump “wins” re-election (whatever form it may take) and they decide to apply the national security apparatus to lean on social media companies so that it becomes a filter for republican propaganda. In fact, given time, that seems inevitable - keep in mind that IGs are an endangered species and political hacks are being hired in place of career bureaucrats.
I fail to understand why not. We have watched the Republican Party slide from reasonably respectable, in the 1970s, into a deeper and deeper morass of depravity. It has been fed by Ronnie’s edict of loyalty, that one should never speak ill of a fellow Republiopath, which laid out the rich agar upon which the fungus of stupid has flourished.
Ronnie is their Christ, his words their gospel, and the tenet of faithfulness unto each other imposes of grip of inaction upon individuals when one of theirs goes off the rails. This is the muck from which the CFSG arose, the firm, slimy ground upon which he stands, the swampy source of the vapors that emanate from his farting face-orifice, hence it should come as no surprise that the Rs slip below the gooey surface rather than challenge him.
Just look what happened in Kansas a few years ago. The R elite turned their backs on him, or at least said that they were, yet, somehow, he was re-elected, and I have no memory of any R lamenting that fact. To them, there is the R circle and all the great ugliness lies outside it, so even their worst is preferable to them than the most tolerable not-R.
I totally did. And it made perfect sense when I used his voice!
I’m REALLY starting to think Trump is 1/2 trying to lose the election. Really, what’s the downside? He suffers through another term in a job he clearly hates, or he becomes a right-wing media darling with his own TV show again, which he LOVES, constant guest appearances on other TV and radio shows, speaking engagements, book deals, and on, and on, and on…
(ETA) All the while paying the victim - which he also LOVES
I most sincerely hope this is the case.
I started suspecting that Trump was trying to lose the election by killing off his core supporters back when he declared he would continue to hold rallies despite COVID.
Wanna bet he’ll fuck that up?
What is the downside? Come on, man, the President is insulated from all manner of legal recourse. Once he is out of office, his family will be vulnerable to massive assault in the courts. He has to hold onto the WH in order to keep the façade of his “empire” doing a huge faceplant.
Wanna bet the sun rises tomorrow?
The other thing is that right now, mainstream Republicans listen to and tolerate him because he is a popular president. But as a powerless ex-president? I expect them to drop him like a hot potato.
I was thinking the same thing. How long did it take for some Republicans to switch from “George W Bush will be remembered as one of the greatest Presidents” to “George W Who?” Six months? A year?
He doesn’t want an election. He has no intentions of leaving office, though. Not now.
His business empire gets exposed for the fraud that it is. It collapses, he ends up in the poor house, and probably spends the rest of his life either in jail or fighting off civil suits. Lots of downside. Trump has been spending the better part of the last 3 years trying to recreate the government so that it stops functioning in the public interest. Losing power means that institutions become reinvigorated and raises the possibility that justice will finally be served. He can’t take that chance, and he will do absolutely everything to make his hybrid form of authoritarianism become a reality.
He may ultimately fall short and he may end up facing an election result that can’t be ignored - I certainly hope so. But I expect him and the Republican party to continue down this path. Like any authoritarian regime (which is what the GOP is now), there comes a point when too many enemies are made, too many rules and laws are broken, that it becomes impossible to reverse course. The Rubicon has been crossed. They don’t even exist as a party unless they continue to commit to this path.
This isn’t a game; his life is on the line.
Yes, especially if he costs the Republicans control of the Senate.
There might even be a possible period of ‘detente’ in which Republicans try to figure out which direction to go in next. There would be no incentive to defend a president driven from power. They’d just wait for the next autocrat to audition for the job.
Individual-1: "So when [Newsom] sends out 28 million ballots in all the mailboxes, and kids go and they raid the mailboxes, and they hand them to people that are signing the ballots down the end of the street, which is happening. They grab the ballots,” Trump said, without evidence. “You don’t think that happens? There’s ballot harvesting.”
Trump Makes Baseless Claim About Children Stealing Vote-By-Mail Ballots | HuffPost Latest News?
I love this quote from the article: “There have been no reports that children stealing ballots out of mailboxes has been a problem for mail-in voting”
[He’s not wrong.
Huh.](https://mobile.twitter.com/libsinamerica/status/1261069338427211782)
iokwrdi
Did Trumpbot break?