Well, how did it play out last time we had a denuclearization agreement with North Korea?
And remember, it’s [del]okay[/del] Very Good when Republicans do it.
A much lower rate, apparently.
Well, people have an anger toward Trump much as they had an anger toward Dubya.
But no, from what I hear this policy is to be blamed on Jeff Sessions and maybe Stephen Miller. Trump bears some responsibility as the chief executive, but this was probably Sessions’s call.
It’s getting a lot of press, because[ul]
[li]it is a sudden change in policy,[/li][li]it’s an emotional issue for a lot of people,[/li][li]some of us have an idea what being a neglected child is like,[/li][li]we’re finding out that there are actual concentration camps in the system,[/li][li]and some children are being taken from their families long-term.[/li][/ul]
Trump and Hannity are now trying to hold these kids hostage to get Congress to approve the Great Wall of Trump. I think that’s about to backfire.
Do you know what the numbers are? I don’t, but I’d like to. Does anyone know?
Obama separated X families, and Trump separated Y families. What are the values for X and Y?
Numbers are hard to get because it is a bit like comparing apples and oranges.
FYI, **GIGObuster’s **link was the first result on Google if you search for “Obama separated X families, and Trump separated Y families. What are the values for X and Y”. So although you said you’d like to know, apparently it wasn’t really a high priority for you.
While I appreciate GIGObuster’s efforts, the answer he got, apparently, was “We don’t know how many families were separated under the Obama administration…”, so I’m not sure telling me I should have Googled it, when Googling it apparently failed to provide an answer, is very useful advice.
At what time did you become aware that the information wasn’t available by Googling it, relative to when you said you were interested in knowing more about it?
What surprised me the most about the Trump era is the extent to which people are simply impervious to facts.
Hillary has been investigated and re-investigated over and over. And yet I’ll still hear people making the same claims and conspiracies (Murder! Benghazi! Pedophilia!) Long after they have been disproven. I still see people, even now, making these same discredited claims. It is pathetic beyond all belief.
The other thing that surprised me is the overt racism. I was one of the poor fools who thought that racism was inherently and self-evidently wrong, and that it was all but expired in America. How wrong I was. I’m consistently astonished to see people saying racist things - often repeating Trump verbatim - and simultaneously blaming OBAMA as if he is somehow responsible for their racism. I didn’t know how evil America really was until the Trump gave people a license to go public with their hate.
But the worst part - I mean the single worst part - is the refusal to separate the party from the individual. Every complaint is illegitimate because I’m “against Trump.” It doesn’t matter what they say or do, no matter how abhorrent. My criticism is automatically invalid because “you don’t really think that,” or “you’re just mad because of X…”
Turns out, there are no legitimate criticisms of Trump. If I say I disagree with Trump, that just means I’m biased against him. There is no possible way to make a legitimate and fact-based criticism of Trump without automatically and reflexively being accused of “bias,” which in turn automatically invalidates my criticism. It ends with me just wanting to scream because there is no way to speak and be heard on my own merits.
So it becomes an inescapable Catch-22.
Me: “Trump did X terrible thing…”
Conservative: “Well, you just don’t like Trump.”
Me: “Yes. I don’t like Trump BECAUSE he did X. That’s how it works.”
Conservative: “No, you’re just biased and you’re mad your side lost.”
It’s the most infuriating and intellectually dishonest thing on Earth. Trying to have a discussion with a Consecutive is impossible when they refuse to acknowledge actual facts and reason, and impugn your motives instead of actually responding to the criticism.
I think that’s really well put, JB99 - and welcome to the Dope.
You said what I’ve been thinking. Spot on.
I second that emotion.
While this was probably a typo, it’s surprisingly apt. One right after the other.
Agreed - even 18 months later, the biggest surprise was on 11/8/2016.
Ask me again in December, and the answer may become, “The fact that it seems that a lot of women who heard the calls to run for office not only took it seriously, but won.”
Which flavor of “still there” do you mean?
“Still there” in the Andrew Johnson / Bill Clinton sort of way?
“Still there” in the Richard Nixon sort of way?
Or “still there” in the Abraham Lincoln / JFK sort of way?
I usually don’t like saying things like this, but one of the things that surprised me about Obama’s presidency was, in eight years, if there were even any seriously planned assassination attempts, none were anywhere near close enough to gain any level of attention - and the same can be said of Trump as well, especially with all of the enemies he is making.
However, assuming you mean leaving through “peaceful” means, if it happens, it won’t be before January 21, in order to give Pence a chance at two full terms.
Black man who called the cops “nazis and gestapo” after being arrested was charged with ethnic intimidation. This has been going on in Pennsylvania since at least 2016.
The election itself was the most surprising. I thought that America would reject a Demagogue, when the chips were down, even though Hillary has her issues. But I was terribly wrong. The disdain and rage in America was underestimated by punditry and polling.
Since Trump was elected, nothing has surprised me. He’s every bit as bad as I thought he would be. And the Republicans are every bit the doormats that I thought they would be. They have completely tossed their fake principles out the window, in support of this president. He effectively has no one to put the brakes on his power, except for the courts. It’s more crucial than ever for the Democrats to get a majority in at least one of the houses of Congress.
After all of this, the main question I have is, “How can the Dems reverse their electoral slide?” This applies not just for POTUS elections, but congressional and also state and local elections. It’s amazing to me how much of an advantage Republicans have at all levels of government right now, and they’re not even a majority of the voters.
There is nothing hilarious about it.
The stolen Obama nomination was absolutely unprecedented in the nation’s history, and their motives for doing it were unconstitutional. (https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/us/politics/obama-supreme-court-merrick-garland.html)
If they had debated in good faith and voted against the nominee based on his own merits, the system would have worked as intended. This did not happen. The Republicans instead explicitly stated that Obama would not be permitted to choose the next justice and refused to even consider any Obama nominee.
Let me repeat that: The Republicans told Obama he could not exercise a power granted to him by the Constitution.
This is not just a stolen nominee. This was essentially a statement that the opposing party does not have the right to govern America. The Republicans have abandoned any pretense of caring about democracy or the Constitution. Their sole purpose is to win elections or - failing that - prevent the opposing party from exercising any actual power. It was Mitch McConnell himself who set the Republican goal of obstructing every single thing Obama ever did.
And that’s why our democracy.is dysfunctional. The Republicans absolutely refuse to consider a problem on its own merits and instead resort to obstructing anything that does not please the rabid fat-right base. Meanwhile, they actively attack the remaining 50-60% of Americans as enemies. It is contemptible.
And if we are enumerating Trump’s so-called successes (As if nominating a Supreme Court Justice is so damned hard when your party controls the entire government…) let’s also talk about his failures: The Republicans control all three branches of government and STILL failed to reform health care and STILL failed to reform immigration. They’re so goddamned stupid they can’t even get out of their own way long enough to pass THEIR OWN DAMNED LAWS.
I mean, does it not click when you see them vote to repeal Obamacare over and over - when they know it cannot pass - but then when they DO have the power to pass it they suddenly implode on themselves and give up?
And where was that wonderful healthcare Trump promised me? Someone - anyone - please explain that to me. Trump promised us great health care reforms that would cover everybody. Where is it? Hmm? Where?
I genuinely don’t see the relevance.
You say: if they’d so voted ‘no’, then the system would’ve worked as intended; the president would’ve exercised a power to nominate a guy — and if the nominee then didn’t get consent from enough senators, then, hey, the system worked!
I can picture a world where that happens again and again: the president exercises that nominate-some-guy power in the wake of a ‘no’ vote, after which the second nominee fails to get consent from enough senators and then a third nominee fails to get consent from enough senators and, well, the system worked!
Imagine that playing out as many times as you like: the president exercises his power to nominate someone; each nominee then fails to get on the Supreme Court upon failing to get consent from enough senators; system worked!
What changes if you get that exact same result, except somebody takes the time to clue in the president that, uh, look, you get that it’ll always be ‘no’, right?