I’m not primarily talking about policies or policy outcomes, though I think on many of those fronts he is doing damage without actually having any coherent idea or values he is pursuing.
I’m primarily talking about damage to the institutions necessary to a well-functioning democracy. Like the idea that U.S. prosecutors don’t care if you are a Republican or Democrat. Like the idea that the census should not be used for political purposes. Like the idea that government officials ought not use their powers for personal financial gain. Like the idea that a free press is important. Like the idea that you should not welcome foreign interference in an election.
In these areas and many more, Trump (with a lot of help from the conservative movement) has begun to transform what were once essential bipartisan norms into contested issues. That’s quite different from making poor policy choices, as Trump has also done.
It puts us on a road to a banana republic, as Ben Sasse put it. If only Ben Sasse would actually do something about it, instead of tweet into the void.
Agreed, basically. Where I would disagree at least somewhat is that all of these are things that started in 2016 with Trump. Where I more strongly disagree is that the US cannot or will not recover from Trump once he’s out of office. As long as we don’t elect another amateur who is nothing more than a marketing huckster, we should be back to the status quo ante fairly quickly.
I’m pretty much in line with John Meacham as per his latest book.
:rolleyes: Ever since conservative Iraq War boosters started calling Americans traitors for protesting the war and/or criticizing President Bush, the term has been permanently debased from its original serious connotations of “perpetrator of criminally treasonous acts”. You have nobody but your own side to blame if you think the word “traitor” is now being tossed around too lightly to describe law-abiding Trump supporters and Trump enablers.
Your condition is appropriate but vastly overoptimistic. There are over 60 million voters who *would *back such a candidate, as we know from recent evidence. The risk to American democracy isn’t from Trump himself, but from the kind of people who are willing to vote for a candidate like him. Please don’t kid yourself that he’ll be the last.
I agree. In fact I consider Trump’s election to be result of the prior worst president’s terms in office because he screwed things up so badly.
And I do think we will survive this, but we will not prosper. Trump came in just as we reached a minimal acceptable recovery from the Bush disasters, we will be further behind once he is gone.
These two premises seem to be in significant tension to me. I think the first is true (i.e., our present moment is the fruit of many seeds). I think the second is not so assured.
However, I think Trump was a perfect storm. A perfect storm of imperfection. Yes, it’s scary how many people were willing to vote for Trump, but there aren’t that many Trumps in the country. Maybe not even anyone else uniquely in the position he was in at the time he was in it.
I mean, if Trump’s appointing of judges and working to cut taxes isn’t proof enough of his disloyalty to America and his traitorous intent, I can’t imagine what is.
And all these guys in Congress who are voting on his programs and confirming the judicial appointments of this duly elected president (i.e., doing their jobs)? Off to prison with every one of them!
It must be Autumn already, nuts have begun falling from the trees! :rolleyes:
All this is nothing more than another iteration of the well-known “my-way-or-the-highway” approach typical of the left. “He’s the antithesis of us, and therefore evil and cannot be tolerated!”
Yeah, whenever someone says, “just think what a saner and slicker Trump could do,” I think, a saner and slicker Trump wouldn’t have as much, or at the very least a different kind of, support as crazy Trump. I just don’t think it’s a one to one thing. Part of the reason he’s popular to a lot of his base is the crazy racist stupid things he says and does. Without that, might he not be closer to, say, Cruz or Pence?
Right on! Calling people traitors is a giant exaggeration and out of place! The proper place for it is the current so called President talking about his own Attorney General!
He got it wrong that Trump Derangement Syndrome is scarier than he thought?
In this thread we’ve got the OP claiming that Trump is disloyal to the country based on the fact that he is nominating judges and passing tax cuts, and that Republicans in Congress who are voting to pass these tax cuts and confirm these judges are likewise disloyal and traitorous.
And we’ve had at least two posters wish him dead, one by murder.
I stand by my assertion that octopus has it right in stating that Trump Derangement Syndrome has reached scary proportions.
You might be right, but I think there’s a very real chance that Trump has put the USA on the road to fascism. There’s simply too many Americans that are signaling that they’re willing to accept at least a little bit of fascism in order to get <fill in the blank>. I would honestly like to think that America can turn it around, but I simply have no confidence in Americans anymore. The fact that Trump, a fascist, has forty-something percent support is not a good sign for the future of the USA.
I doubt that it’s occurred to anyone here that the prospect of such occurrences is why many people voted for Trump, and not the “racism” that you people are always on about.
Or they voted for him because they thought he would “shake things up” and “tell it like it is,” which he has also been doing?
I saw a blurb on Facebook recently by a pro-Trump group who asked, “Have the last four presidents even been trying?”.
I didn’t vote for Trump, but the impression among his supporters is that he’s gotten a lot done in a very short period of time, and with virtually everyone against him.
in my estimation racism is waaay down on the list of why people voted for him.