Why hasn’t this been mentioned in the media?
Trump is holding 800,000 people’s pay hostage until he gets his demands. That’s got to be one of the biggest terrorist acts in history.
Not only that, but people working for no pay is in violation of the 13th Amendment.
You’re completely right.
And the NRA is a terrorist organization, the atomic bombings were a terror attack, the Founding Father’s were all terrorists, and Japan fought in self-defense.
Maybe the Dems are terrorists because they are holding this pay hostage so that they can allow foreign invaders in the country?
Is this a joke? Is this what this board has come to? Any political disagreement means terrorism?
See CONTENTS | The Illustrated Guide to Terrorism for a conventional definition of terrorism. Jeopardizing people’s jobs is not terrorism, nor would 800000 people going on strike be considered terrorism. Even what bad guys like Stalin did or what naughty state actors constantly do today is not terrorism by that measure, so the media is unsurprisingly not going to embrace that loaded term lightly.
The “Dems” are not the ones making demands.
Hostage-takers make demands.
And, what is the definition of “terrorism” - “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.”
I’m not sure what Trump is doing is “unlawful” but it might be. That’s your department.
ETA:
And since this administration has completely changed the meaning of “terrorist,” I don’t feel that I’m stretching.
Two-and-a-half out of four ain’t bad!
There’s also the useful concept of “state terrorism” to cover the stuff Stalin did and expand the idea to include things that are clearly terrorism, but happen to be legal. I don’t think stupid and self-defeating policy counts as state terrorism, but people should know that the concept exists, even if it doesn’t apply to the OP’s scenario.
After his government kidnapped children, didn’t keep records of where they were, and trafficked some of them into we don’t know where–and that was consciously terroristic–this shutdown seems like hardball politics by comparison. But yes, you can say that someone who threatens mass reprisal either for his political ends or to force subservience is a bit of a terrorist.
Trump’s not smart enough to be a terrorist.
Neither was Richard Reid. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t one.
Generally speaking, terrorist acts have to include actual attempted murder or murders to count. The thing about depriving 800k people of their pay is that this is something a failing business may do routinely. If a corporation fails to pay it’s workers for a few weeks while the corporate executives fight over the accounts, nobody calls them terrorists. Some workers will quit when that happens, it’s really bad for morale and retention, but some will stay and sometimes they do get paid. Sometimes the company folds and the workers never get their back pay, since they are just creditors and the company has finite assets.
He’s already been compared to Hitler. Why not Bin Ladin as well?
I don’t know about terrorist.
Extortionist? Yeah. But terror means killing innocents. Trump is just making them miserable.
Even taking what you wrote as an accurate representation of the facts, it doesn’t make Trump a terrorist.
Terrorists don’t take people hostage for money. They kill people to cause terror.
Trump terrifies me.
(knee slapper)
Right, because Democrats didn’t cave to Trump’s ransom demand when he shut down the Republican controlled government, then Democrats are guilty of the thing that Trump did, and Republicans enabled. That’s a good one!
Seriously, guys. Trump wants funds allocated for a border wall, Dems don’t. The impasse depends on both parties. Either one could cave and resolve the issue. Why not blame Pelosi and Schumer as the terrorists? That makes equal sense as blaming Trump.
Did it depend on both parties when the Republicans controlled the house, the senate, and the white house when the breakdown occurred? Jeez. :smack:
Trump is not a Republican, except on paper. He is a party unto himself. The Republicans hate him as much as the Democrats do. And you know that as well as I do.