I loved Donald’s answer in regards to the Israel Palestine conflict, more so despite always touting himself as a great negotiator, he conceded that he may not be successful in bringing peace. Trump was honest and fair.
I find it laughable when people kiss Israel’s ass. These politicians are cringe worthy. Marco Rubio’s answer was garbage.
Israeli offers were never generous as he puts it. One of many reasons I hope Trump kills off this busboy from Miami come March 15.
Conservative media’s been pushing hard for Rubio since the debate. Every Trump speech is a “disaster” and “meltdown”, every Rubio comment is lauded as some epic takedown of Trump. Trump’s insults are “bullying”, Rubio’s are waved aside with (per NRO) “It’s politics, not ballet”. It’s as though they’re trying to make up for six months of inaction in three days.
Sort of funny to see them desperately scramble so hard.
It’ll be even more amazing if it works. The attention span of some of their audience is … not the best.
[Trump doesn’t comport himself well when talking about Trump University lawsuit:
Well, in 2012 the debates moved the polls a lot. In 2016, Trump has been awful in every debate but it hasn’t affected his support at all. So while I hope that Rubio finally wounded him, I don’t think Trump voters care about Trump’s negatives. Pointing out awful things about Trump doesn’t make any of his supporters desert him.
Trump was very good in some of the debates.
Here one should note that big supporters of Trump like Joe Arpaio also have the propensity at going after the judges that are on their cases.
Joe Arpaio though goes one better and did investigate the relatives of the judge in his racial profiling case in an effort to get dirt and to intimidate the judiciary. And Trump decided to join that sorry lawman to the hip regardless of what he just recently had done.
I gave up on the idea that Trump is just an ignorant of what his followers do think and do, Trump does want for America to be more to his authoritarian neo fascist liking.
No other clip more succinctly illustrates Trump’s fuckedupness than this one. To insult our collective intelligence by using ignorance of a major political figure as an excuse (rather than a point of shame)…one strike. To insult our collective intelligence by acting as though his campaign could hardly be expected to do research on who is publically and provocatively endorsing him days after the fact…second strike. The third strike…refusing to do the bare minimum and condemn the racist rhetoric in Duke’s endorsement.
I weep for our country right now.
“I don’t know anything about white supremacists”. I honestly couldn’t believe what I was hearing when watching the broadcast, and I am seldom surprised any more by anything Trump says.
As do a great many of his followers.
Obama was a bit of a blank slate. Any left-leaning person with a Hope for a Change was able to imagine that their personal agenda of changes was the one he’d embrace. It worked pretty darn good at getting him elected.
Authoritarian-leaning citizens are the same way. They’re all for an authoritarian government because they assume that government will implement the policy mix they dream of over all the objections from the folks they disapprove of while viciously attacking the enemies they dream of.
The error in both cases is not understanding the wide range of other people harboring similar degrees of hope but with totally different wish lists.
The other major difference is it’s hard to see much self-dealing in how Obama has done the last 8 years whereas it’s easy to see how an authoritarian almost from the git-go engages in self-dealing. And funnily enough, once you give power to an authoritarian he’s pretty much immune to popular pressure for a course change. Why? Because he’s an authoritarian you dumbasses.
Over the centuries many people have granted power to a despot expecting him to be their champion. Only to find they’re his first victims.
One would hope 21st Century Americans were smarter than that. One may well be proven wrong this year. We shall see.
And even with some disappointments he was reelected.
And indeed those wish lists still have items with a chance to become reality. In my case I’m happy to have a president that used the bully pulpit to support vaccination efforts, to support new climate change treaties and regulations to deal with emissions. To get health care reform and other issues.
Trump wants to shit on all that, he may have some interest on health care reform, but he is offering the same old of overturning Obamacare instead of reforming it as most Americans do want.
But one very important item for me has been how authoritarians deal with other authoritarian people in the Americas and other regions. I can only expect a complete disregard of the rule of law if Trump is elected and he will support right wing coups in Latin America and other places, and to do underhanded efforts to destabilize countries that choose to have more progressive or leftist governments. A return to the “good old days” with American soldiers being sacrificed for the interests of very few powerful Americans.
Because for many of the Trump followers those were the days when America was “great”.
Is this a dog-whistle to any 19th-century Know Nothing party types that are still around? Because it’s straight out of their (ultimately unsuccessful) anti-immigrant populist playbook.
Do not mistake my comments for equating Trump & Obama. Nor for any kind of approval of Trump.
I am asserting that Trump will use similar electoral tactics because they work. As exemplified by Obama’s success.
I also assert, both here and in many previous posts, that Trump will be a disastrously bad President for what the USA truly stands for. If even marginally successful electorally he’ll usher in an era of authoritarian Congressman and openly authoritarian support groupings.
Some people have a very hard time separating what they want to have happen from what they think will happen. All they can do is cheerlead for their preferred outcome and create rationalizations for why their preferences will carry the day.
That’s not me. Not even a little bit.
Trump is NOT what I want to have happen. He *is *what I think will happen. For the reasons I’ve described.
Well, then this is a time to post my signature, the point of it is that it will happen if we all that see the dangers do not make an effort to prevent him taking over:
The only successful way to predict the future is to invent it. - Alan Kay
Make it so.
For my part I will, for the first time in my life, volunteer for the presidential candidate; to work closely with local candidates and make more of an effort than just contributing some bucks to the Democratic candidate.
Things could get even more entertaining that I thought if The Donald takes the nomination:
I just listened to Christie taking questions from George Stephanopoulos this morning. It was cringe-inducingly painful. There were so many things that Christie had mocked Trump about, legitimately, and hearing him try to make excuses or walk it all back was just a facepalm. So not only now do I think it was a bad move for Christie, I’m not even sure it was a good move for Trump. If he is going to get endorsements, it should be from people who haven’t gone on the record pointing out so much of what’s ridiculous about his proposals.
I will say, the GOP is finally hitting at Trump. Lot of news attention about him retweeting a white supremacist, the David Duke comment, Trump University being pushed heavily to the front of public attention. Now, the David Duke quote is new, but Trump actually RTed a white supremacist very early in the campaign and he was largely given a pass on it. Trump University is a scandal several years old that has been in the news for a few years.
If these new more aggressive attacks are reflected in a reduction in Trump votes come Tuesday, or even a collapse in them, then it’ll really show how monumentally stupid the GOP has been in not going after Trump. If it all bounces off like everything else has, then I guess there really wasn’t anything that could be done.
I just drove down into South Carolina from Wilmington, NC and back, and along the approximately 100 mile drive along route 17 in North Carolina I saw at least two dozen Trump signs. I didn’t see a single sign for any other Republican candidate. The North Carolina primary is on March 15th.
I assume everyone else is sitting on their resources until they see how super Tuesday shakes out. Now granted, a couple of dozen signs along 100 miles of highway could easily be put out by a volunteer in an afternoon, but still, not a single sign for anyone else. Trump’s people are the only ones acting like their candidate is going to be in the race in mid-March. That’s the kind of prophecy that can turn out to be self fulfilling.
Same source also has posted an article mentioning that Trump has received an endorsement from Jean-Marie Le Pen, former head of France’s anti-immigration Front National. I sort of figured that would be coming along at some point.