Trump has endless good things to say about foreign dictators while constantly attacking our democratic allies.
He is hostile to the fact that we have a free press.
He doesn’t like having an independent judiciary.
He doesn’t understand or care about the constitution.
He supports mobs to suppress dissent and criticism.
He supports torture.
He isn’t Hitler for various reasons, but he has authoritarian tendencies. If Trump had his way, this country would be different with fewer checks and balances and fewer freedoms.
Yet we have a President who wears ill-fitting suits, a tie long enough to hide the fact he forgot to zip up again and a hairstyle that says his barber is scared to say anything.
There really is a Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). There was one for Barack Obama, George W. Bush and maybe the Clintons too.
But TDS is worse. I just saw a headline from Huffington Post (a very left-leaning newspaper/website): “Trump’s Climate Withdrawal Is An Impeachable Offense” and a similar headline from the Daily Caller: “Law Prof Says Trump’s Paris Decision ‘Constitutes An Impeachable Offense’”.
Inside the second article,
At least the Daily Caller made it clear that is someone’s opinion, and let us know what the professor’s bias was. HuffPo sounded like they were really hoping enough people would agree with the headline and force Trump out today.
I think Trump’s decision was crazy (like so many), but that’s not “impeachable”.
TDS is probably so severe because he’s not presidential. He’s incompetent, unprofessional, crazy, openly racist, a non-strategic liar, corrupt, a conman, ripped people off, says and does outrageous things and had been astonishingly lucky so he almost never faced consequences for his actions… but he won a cultural battle against an unprofessional presidential candidate who was a terrible campaigner and suffered from paranoid issues. Trump embarrasses his country on a regular basis and sets a really low bar. In short, people didn’t think he should have won the election and don’t want to wait four years for him to be voted out. (There’s also the fear that he might win another election, since the country proved itself foolish enough to vote him in last year.)
If I were an American I would be pissed off, but I would avoid TDS. Americans voted him in and they have to take responsibility for that. If you didn’t vote for him, you need to consider why the Democrats lost.
Yes, I understand you resent his boorish appearance because it does not conform to your Puritan ethic. He reminds you of a member of the lower classes, and this is unforgivable. Rodney Dangerfield has become president and you’re fuming. He should begin every other sentence with “So…” and end it with"…right?" like a genuine member of the ruling class. He’s like a nouveau-riche construction contractor with a jet-ski.
Yes, clearly his appearance is the #1 critique of Donald Trump. That he looks and acts “nouveau-riche”, doesn’t talk like a rich guy, and - holy shit, you realize we’re talking about the president of the united states, right? Even if the main critique really was, “He looks, talks, and often acts like a dumb asshole,” (it isn’t, and I’m kind of at a loss as to how one might make that claim unless one has sequestered oneself in a room for the past two years with nothing but the most absurd and shallow right-wing newscasts to go off of) that would still be a pretty big deal. Individual faux pas among leaders matter, and the president acting like jackass lowers our standing on the world stage. This guy is, for better or worse, our primary representation to the rest of the world; him prancing around looking, talking, and acting like a low-grade moron is a bad thing. There’s a reason “acting presidential” is a thing, y’know.
These are all a bit ambitious a year into your first term.
No, he doesn’t want to detain them. He wants to round them up and ship them off somewhere else.
Well…he tries to have their character assassinated.
Well, he’s no Nixon.
Declaring the mainstream media to be un-American dispensers of “fake news” is a pretty good start.
I’m sure he’d like to.
Firing the head of the FBI
See snfaulkner’s comment.
Germans in 1933 didn’t know they were in “Germany circa 1933”.
Please. Enough with the Right and their “snowflake” shit. Show them a couple dudes getting married, a Black president, tell them they can’t make racist jokes in mixed company, some poor people actually aren’t crack addicts looking to spend their welfare checks on more crack or that maybe buying military grade weaponry shouldn’t be as easy as buying a new belt and see who is the snowflake.
I’ll agree that the hyperbole over Trump is a bit extreme. However there are reasons Trump elicits such strong feelings, particularly on the left:
First of all, he has been a living caricature of the worst qualities of wealth and excess since the 80s.
In spite of all his talk about “helping America”, most of his actions seem to be about helping the extremely wealthy.
He acts like an asshole
He appears to be woefully and willfully ignorant on important topics
Much of his rhetoric is, if not outright “racist”, is designed to strike a xenophobic chord with his base.
He’s very divisive in a way that Obama wasn’t. Obama was divisive in a sense that Republicans wouldn’t work with him because he was a Black Democrat with a funny sounding name. Trump is divisive in a sense that anyone who doesn’t agree with him is an “enemy” to be ridiculed and marginalized.
At best, I would say Trump is a narcissist (not a disqualifier for politics) who has spent his entire life in a family-created wealth bubble where his arguable success in building golf courses and gaudy condo towers has largely allowed him to overestimate his own intelligence and abilities in other areas. What that means is that he perceives the world through a lens of “what is good for business is good for America”. He has little understanding of the common people other than as employees of one of his or his supplier’s companies. He has little understanding of politics or managing contrary viewpoints because he has always been “in charge” and surrounded by loyal family and sycophants.
It’s always fascinating to read someone saying “nobody is saying things like that” in a thread and on a board and in a country where people are saying things like that.
Perhaps the deranged anti-Trumpers shouldn’t wrap their personal identity up so tightly with the state and its executive. There is a nasty history of that sort of thing.
I’m taking the OP seriously and giving it some thought. While I disagree with much (all?) of Trump’s agenda, the same would be true of Rubio or Jeb Bush. (Although I personally stand to profit significantly if he manages to cut tax rates). Trump is an embarrassment, for reasons that are self-evident. His election reflects quite badly on the competence of American voters and their commitment to American values. While we can always use fresh ideas in government, we were not in any crises in 2016 that would justify a vote designed to “blow up the system.” The fact that so many voters simply didn’t care about the consequences of their vote troubles me to my core.
Trump is a disgrace, as a person, businessman, and President. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, and doesn’t care to know. I don’t think he’ll do any of the things outlined in the OP, but I think we can set the bar a little higher than “don’t execute your political opponents.”
I love the fact they always have a LawProfessor to explain that this time, Pinky, it will work, and the new thing is the unimpeachable reason to impeach Il Magnifico.
Like they keep them in the basement, to be hauled out every time they need an authoritative Decision on The Impeachment of Trump.
It’s not just the authoritarianism. Trump is a dangerous combination of incompetence and recklessness. He does not seem to care that careless words from him can have huge consequences. Bragging about (till then) classified intelligence to the Russian ambassador, changing his speech to the G7 without consulting the State Department, insulting other countries on Twitter, contradicting the rest of the government in supporting Arab countries’ sanctions on Qatar, etc.