Donald Trump - MAGAtwat news and discussion

[WouldBe]

The 22nd Amendment says "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice" - hard to see even Trump weaseling his way past that, even if he appoints a couple of Supreme Court justices with outlandish ideas when Alito and Thomas die or retire and manages to get himself declared winner of the 2020 election

What does the constitution say about "office of dictator of the USA".

 

[tim]

Weird how no-one ever seems to take the female version of a term and uses that as the basis of the gender-neutral collective term.

Lxssxs

 

[Nylock]

I always think, where possible, it's important to get people to commit to certain ideas and metrics beforehand, so you have something to hold them to on the other side.

If you so it all after the fact, it's always much easier to claim opinions or values that are more convenient, makes it easier to stick to what they know.

I don't know how exactly it'd be done, but I'd really love for someone to get some Trump voters on the record now about what they expect from his government, what has he promised that they want delivered, and then return to them just under four years from now to see how they think he's done.

I suspect, most likely, it'd force a lot of them to confront their cognitive dissonance head on. Many would still try and square it away somehow, that's human, but at least we'd have hard evidence of it rather than just the more easily evaded supposition.

The current rose-tinted view that some hold of the Trump economy was actually the tail end of the obama economy playing out through the pre-covid part of his presidency but, ofc, Trump being Trump, he totally stole the credit for it. Likewise now, the worst of the inflation over there has passed and after the strong economy teed-up by the Biden administration, if it's still doing well four years down the line and prices have also fallen, what do you think trump is going to do? There certainly won't be a 'Thanks to the foundation laid by my predecessor, we are now enjoying the fruits of that effort' type speech, it will all be 'me! it was me! I did that for you!!!' -and he will be beleived and the media that his voters tends to consume (both trad and independent) will also be relentlessly propagandising that "fact".
So, even if we were to do the 'before and after' question; short of a major collapse-triggering disaster, his voters will come out at the other end with a sense of vindication (no matter how tenuous it may be in reality).

...

I don't think the Democratic party's going to have much luck reaching people like these RNC attendees, or those the Trump campaign tried to appeal to in the last weeks of the campaign when they switched focus from the economy to attacking trans rights, and I hope whatever reset the Democrats try for next doesn't involve throwing marginalised groups under the bus

View attachment 450232

As far as reaching them is concerned; people like that smugly grinning twat in the tiara? fat chance. People like the more stony faced one on the left of the picture? maybe... However, one thing's for certain, the democrats are going to learn all the wrong lessons from this. The process has already begun on that front. They really haven't got a fucking clue.

You can see why I'm having trouble with the whole "they know not what they do" excuses being made for them. At some point it wears thin.

Yeah. Patronising denial of agency is kind of a more polite way of saying "look at those thick fuckers voting for trump hur hur". A lot of those who enthusiastically voted for trump ARE hoping he carries out his many threats. A lot of those people are out and proud with their vitriol and hatred. They knew exactly what they were voting in and were well up for it. Some of these voters will end up on the wrong side of the "I didn't think it would happen to me" equation and, frankly, fuck those guys. But, it's also true that some of the trump voters did so out of sheer desperation that their lot would improve and the democrats ought to be asking themselves how can they reach out to them better and win them over. Especially since a left populist agenda like that espoused by the likes of sanders seems to be an anathemea to these fools* despite his policy points seeming to be overwhelmingly popular with the country..

*The DNC, not the desperate trumpists.

 

[petee]

but, i was told by posters here, liberals are the problem

Racist incident at Five Guys in Grand Junction going viral online

A racist incident at the Five Guys location in Grand Junction this week was captured on video and has quickly received thousands of views online. An employee who was subjected

www.gjsentinel.com

In the video, a man who just received his food yells at employees, “F- — you, you f--- — beaners! Europeans f--- — colonized this f-- — country, and you f--- — beaners are f--- — invading it! You’re f--- — invaders! You should be f--- — ashamed!”

 

[petee]

but, i was told by posters here, liberals are the problem

MAGA Launches Increasingly Horrific Attacks on Women After Trump Win

Donald Trump’s win has emboldened his followers.

newrepublic.com

“Your body, my choice. Forever,” posted white supremacist, Hitler fan, and far-right political pundit Nick Fuentes hours before the race had even been called in Trump’s favor.

On X (formerly Twitter), supporters of the “grab ’em by the pussy” rapist, convicted adulterer, Jeffrey Epstein confidant, and proud abortion rights destroyer reveled in their own threats against women, openly celebrating what they described as an onslaught of rape on the horizon.

“Women threatening sex strikes like LMAO as if you have a say,” wrote streamer Jon Miller, who later noted that he had successfully removed a community note from the viral post, allowing him to “profit from it.”

 

[redsquirrel]

Don't you - as someone who once called themselves a socialist and anarchist (and perhaps still does) - at least recognise the arguments that anarchist, socialists and communists both on here, and more widely (Three Way Fight for example) are making when they attack liberalism?

Even if you don't agree with such an analysis surely you are able to recognise that it is position made by serious people from the political tradition you come from, made from an analysis of the current situation within a class struggle framework. Indeed I have a hard time comprehending how any socialist perspective could not recognise the harmful role liberalism has played.

Like hitmouse I think the focus on blame is not a useful political response (and untimely part of a liberal ideological framework) - if anyone is to blame it is the bosses. But liberalism, yes the political response from socialist has to be made, ultimately, in opposition to it. That does not mean refusing to work alongside or with liberal groups/organisations where it is tactically and strategically advantageous, but it does mean recognising not the real political divide that exits.

 

[kabbes]

but, i was told by posters here, liberals are the problem

What are you defining as “the problem”? If you mean the behaviour of individuals is the problem then each individual is their own problem. And that’s indeed a liberal way of understanding the problem — no structures, no causes, no systems, just individuals and their moral behaviour, which comes from nowhere but essential goodness or badness.

On the other hand, if you see the problem as the social structures that cause that behaviour to arise in the first place, you get quite a different perspective on it.

 

[Lord Camomile]

but, i was told by posters here, liberals are the problem

That's sort of like thinking "but I was told meeting in large groups was the problem" when someone dies of Covid.

 

[stdP]

Racist incident at Five Guys in Grand Junction going viral online

A racist incident at the Five Guys location in Grand Junction this week was captured on video and has quickly received thousands of views online. An employee who was subjected

www.gjsentinel.com

In the video, a man who just received his food yells at employees, “F- — you, you f--- — beaners! Europeans f--- — colonized this f-- — country, and you f--- — beaners are f--- — invading it! You’re f--- — invaders! You should be f--- — ashamed!”

Presumably the irony of Mexico (and a large chunk of the SW of the US) also being colonised by Europeans is lost on them for some reason...? Why, it's almost like the Spanish were the ones who colonised Colorado first (thought the name might be a bit of a giveaway). I have a sneaking suspicion this burger muncher might be slightly ignorant of history.

 

[two sheds]

Don't you - as someone who once called themselves a socialist and anarchist (and perhaps still does) - at least recognise the arguments that anarchist, socialists and communists both on here, and more widely (Three Way Fight for example) are making when they attack liberalism?

Even if you don't agree with such an analysis surely you are able to recognise that it is position made by serious people from the political tradition you come from, made from an analysis of the current situation within a class struggle framework. Indeed I have a hard time comprehending how any socialist perspective could not recognise the harmful role liberalism has played.

Like hitmouse I think the focus on blame is not a useful political response (and untimely part of a liberal ideological framework) - if anyone is to blame it is the bosses. But liberalism, yes the political response from socialist has to be made, ultimately, in opposition to it. That does not mean refusing to work alongside or with liberal groups/organisations where it is tactically and strategically advantageous, but it does mean recognising not the real political divide that exits.

Can I just check something, since you've referred to me in the past with some contempt as a liberal? Just after you did that last time, you said on a separate thread that liberalism justified the slave trade.

Now that suggests to me that you're accusing me as a liberal as being in favour of justifying the slave trade. So, how are you defining a 'liberal'?

 

[redsquirrel]

Can I just check something, since you've referred to me in the past with some contempt as a liberal? Just after you did that last time, you said on a separate thread that liberalism justified the slave trade.

Now that suggests to me that you're accusing me as a liberal as being in favour of justifying the slave trade. So, how are you defining a 'liberal'?

That does not follow. The Democratic Party is assisting in the genocide currently occurring in Gaza, but that does not make everyone who voted Democrat complicit in that genocide. A suspect a significant number of voters will have heard their noses and voted Democrat to try and keep out Trump.

Liberalism did not just justify the slave trade, the building of the slave trade was precisely because of the growth of liberal capitalism. The racist and sexism, let alone the inequality, in our society have been built by and are maintained by liberalism. As for the definition, well the definition provided to you on that thread - Williams Keywords, is pretty satisfactory.

Or if you want something longer there is this

Liberalism

In this definitive historical investigation, Italian author and philosopher Domenico Losurdo argues that from the outset liberalism, as a philosophical position and ideology, has been bound up with the most illiberal of policies: slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and snobbery. Narrating an...

www.versobooks.com

 

[kabbes]

Yeah, I think it’s fair to say that colonialism and liberalism mutually constituted each other during the 17th and 18th centuries. The idea that morality is a transcendent quality of the individual soul was both a driver of and driven by the expansion of European powers into Africa, and the exploitation of the people and resources found there. Indigenous groups were found to not embody enlightenment rationality, and therefore could (and even should) be appropriated for Christianity, including their transformation through a Protestant work ethos, thus justifying slavery. Meanwhile, the success of colonialism fed back to a self-understanding of Europeans that their own transcendent morality was empirically correct, justifying liberalism.

 

[danny la rouge]

What are you defining as “the problem”? If you mean the behaviour of individuals is the problem then each individual is their own problem. And that’s indeed a liberal way of understanding the problem — no structures, no causes, no systems, just individuals and their moral behaviour, which comes from nowhere but essential goodness or badness.

On the other hand, if you see the problem as the social structures that cause that behaviour to arise in the first place, you get quite a different perspective on it.

And importantly, and I think this is where some people are misconceiving this analysis, this does not remove from the individuals petee highlights the responsibility for their own behaviour. It does not excuse, it does not mitigate, it does not remove agency. A racist assault is a racist assault. A misogynist tirade of rape threats is a misogynist tirade of rape threats. And the responsibility for those lies with the people making them.

That there are conditions around every action does not remove the agency for the action taken. The Trump victory no doubt emboldened the man in the restaurant to make his racist tirade. But he is still responsible for it. Just as those who set fire to refugee hostels in the UK did not do so in a void out of nowhere, but were absolutely responsible for their behaviour.

But to see these incidents as simply inexplicable except for being the actions of a bad person is a mistake.

 

[redsquirrel]

Losurdo has good fun drawing out the circles that liberal philosophers/politcal thinkers of the time desperately tried, and failed, to square over the slave trade and workers being part of the body politic. Some attacking the slave trade while defending the removal of workers from citizenship, while others arguing for the slave trade on the basis that it defends citizenship.

The contours of liberal freedom are beginning to become clear. Authors like Burgh and Fletcher could still be regarded as champions of the cause of liberty by Jefferson, who lived in a situation where black slavery and widespread ownership of land (taken from the Indians) made the project of enslaving white vagrants purely academic. In Europe things were different, as emerges from the interventions of Montesquieu and Blackstone. Those who did not subscribe to the principle of the inadmissibility and ‘uselessness of slavery among ourselves’ began to be regarded as foreign to the emerging liberal party. Starting with Montesquieu and then, more clearly, Blackstone and the judgment in the Somersett case, what characterized the emergent liberal party were two essential points: (1) condemnation of despotic political power and the demand for self-government by civil society in the name of liberty and the rule of law; (2) assertion of the principle of the inadmissibility and ‘uselessness of slavery among ourselves’, or of the principle on whose basis England—and, prospectively, Europe—possessed ‘too pure’ an air to be “able to tolerate the presence of slaves on its ‘soil’. The second point is no less essential than the first. The legitimation of ‘slavery among ourselves’ would involve the dispersion of the pathos of liberty that played a key role in the liberal demand for self-government by civil society, or the self-government of the community of the free.

 

[gentlegreen]

For the politically naive such as myself, can we please clarify the exact meaning of "liberal" in this context ?

 

[kabbes]

For the politically naive such as myself, can we please clarify the exact meaning of "liberal" in this context ?

Good recent post from danny on this

.Next, as a libertarian communist, I use the word liberal in a particular way. I will reproduce a post I wrote a decade ago explaining what I mean by it:


If I call someone a liberal, I mean it in a specific sense. Not to mean that they belong to a capital L political party, nor, as those the American right do, to mean that they are somewhere to the left of wherever the speaker stands, nor do I mean that they are generous in some way.

Rather, I use it to mean that their position ignores the structural issues in the problem being discussed. I use it to mean that they are seeing the problem in terms of individual behaviour rather than social construction. I use it to mean they are missing some important systemic formation, such as class. Usually class.

For example, if someone is complaining of media bias but they are seeing that bias in terms of the individual behaviour of individual journalists, then their approach is liberal.

The liberal limits ideas to individual behaviour. The liberal thinks that in order to free the media from bias, all that is needed is for individuals to behave better, more morally, more fairly. While these aims may in themselves be laudable, they will have limited effect, as the structures will not have been tackled. The liberal's ideas therefore lack rigour. If I call you liberal, I am saying your analysis lacks rigour.

This limiting lack of rigour defines the liberal response to the ills of capitalism for a reason. Liberalism became a political expression of the capitalist class. It offers a lack of rigour because it doesn't want to overturn the privilege of the elite. It limits the debate to a discussion of individual morality, because that way change itself is limited. Liberalism offers individual guilt that change has not come fast enough, but it does not offer real change.

If I call you a liberal, I don't mean it as a compliment.

 

[two sheds]

That does not follow. The Democratic Party is assisting in the genocide currently occurring in Gaza, but that does not make everyone who voted Democrat complicit in that genocide. A suspect a significant number of voters will have heard their noses and voted Democrat to try and keep out Trump.

Liberalism did not just justify the slave trade, the building of the slave trade was precisely because of the growth of liberal capitalism. The racist and sexism, let alone the inequality, in our society have been built by and are maintained by liberalism. As for the definition, well the definition provided to you on that thread - Williams Keywords, is pretty satisfactory.

Or if you want something longer there is this

Liberalism

In this definitive historical investigation, Italian author and philosopher Domenico Losurdo argues that from the outset liberalism, as a philosophical position and ideology, has been bound up with the most illiberal of policies: slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and snobbery. Narrating an...

www.versobooks.com

No, I want to know the precise definition of the word 'liberal' that you are using to label me with such contempt. You don't get away with 'read this book'. To be clear, I'm not arguing with the statements about liberalism, I'd like to know why you call me a liberal as opposed, say, to most other people on urban.

But I'm glad you're going to be happy with me saying well you're a communist and communism killed millions in russia. Just sayin' like, not that you're personally responsible for it but that's where your politics lead.

 

[gentlegreen]

So this is not the economic liberalism defined by Adam Smith ...

 

[two sheds]

Good recent post from danny on this

Yes, that's fair. Now if redsquirrel agrees with that, I'd be interested in him pointing out where I've done that for him to label me a liberal with such contempt (I keep repeating the 'contempt' because it oozes from his posts addressed to me, so I'd like to know my exact behaviour so I can improve it for the future ).

 

[krtek a houby]

For the politically naive such as myself, can we please clarify the exact meaning of "liberal" in this context ?

Just read any of the politics threads here - they're full of them.

 

[kabbes]

So this is not the economic liberalism defined by Adam Smith ...

Smith’s philosophy came directly out of the self-same enlightenment rationalism. What do you find inconsistent?

 

[krtek a houby]

No, I want to know the precise definition of the word 'liberal' that you are using to label me with such contempt. You don't get away with 'read this book'. To be clear, I'm not arguing with the statements about liberalism, I'd like to know why you call me a liberal as opposed, say, to most other people on urban.

But I'm glad you're going to be happy with me saying well you're a communist and communism killed millions in russia. Just sayin' like, not that you're personally responsible for it but that's where your politics lead.

Calling out atrocities carried out under communism is a liberal trick. The atrocities were carried out by individuals, not the system.

 

[pbsmooth]

Celebration time for Trump supporters

Many other social media posts viewed by WIRED were deeply misogynistic in nature. The gender dynamics at play during this race were particularly stark, with Harris promising to safeguard women’s medical freedom while Trump aggressively pursued a young male demographic that has become increasingly culturally conservative.

One viral meme that was shared widely across platforms on Wednesday had the caption “RELEASE THE PROJECT 2025 HANDMAIDS TALE RAPE SQUADS.” “BREAKING: Millions of women report for handmaid duty following Trump’s stunning victory,” someone else wrote in Patriots.win. Some of these memes were also shared across Telegram channels for Proud Boy chapters.

Lauren Witzke, a far-right activist, shared an image on Telegram of Trump posing with a group of white male college students from Iowa State University. “Big shout out to men, especially white men, who turned out in force to put women back in their place.”

In a post on X to his nearly 100,000 followers, Evan Kilgore, an “ambassador” for Turning Point USA, hailed a potential coming crackdown on minorities, LGBTQ people, immigrants, and women. “Women, back to the kitchen; Abortions, illegal; Gays, back in the closet; Interracial marriage, banned; Illegals, pack your bags; Trannies, back to the asylums; Jesus, back in our schools,” he wrote. “We are so back."

Far-Right Donald Trump Supporters Celebrate His Victory with Violent Memes and Calls for Executions

“Many many many executions are warranted,” one Trump supporter wrote on Truth Social. “These traitors are a terminal cancer that MUST BE completely eradicated to make America healthy again.”

www.wired.com

Once you come to terms with some of the horrific stuff on Witzke’s twitter, there is a glimmer of hope in the fact they are already arguing about Trump picking the wrong loonies in his govt. In-fighting already.

 

[kabbes]

What is the communism being spoken about here? Is it Stalinist totalitarian statism? Maoist totalitarian statism? Were these actually communism? If so, how?

 

[two sheds]

Calling out atrocities carried out under communism is a liberal trick. The atrocities were carried out by individuals, not the system.

So calling out atrocities carried out liberalism is another liberal trick? The atrocities were carried out by individuals, not the system.

To be clear my only disagreement here is that I'm being labeled a liberal with all the baggage and contempt that that implies, but without being told exactly why I'm a liberal and, say, you're not.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Calling out atrocities carried out under communism is a liberal trick. The atrocities were carried out by individuals, not the system.

I don't think that's helpful. The systems of the USSR and China, for example, produced Stalin and Mao and Stalinism and Maoism, under whose names millions were killed. This isn't totally explicable only by looking at Stalin or Mao as individuals. You have to look at the system that produced and enabled them. How did those revolutions turn into those regimes?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

What is the communism being spoken about here? Is it Stalinist totalitarian statism? Maoist totalitarian statism? Were these actually communism? If so, how?

For me, the more interesting question involves the nature of the revolutions that resulted in those totalitarian regimes. How did the Russian Revolution turn into Stalinism? How would you prevent a similar revolution from turning out similarly in the future? Can you?

 

[kabbes]

Totalitarianism is a government of fear based on the cult of the individual leader. It requires the leader’s true wants to be interpreted and acted on at all times, under fear of death. It operates through circles of decreasing proximity to that leader, with each circle having every less access to knowledge and ability to act. It’s hard to imagine a system more opposite to communist ideas and it doesn’t become communism just because the totalitarian leader calls it communism!

 

[kabbes]

For me, the more interesting question involves the nature of the revolutions that resulted in those totalitarian regimes. How did the Russian Revolution turn into Stalinism? How would you prevent a similar revolution from turning out similarly in the future? Can you?

You’re right, that is a more interesting question. Probably a derail for this thread, though, even if I pretended to have an answer for it!

 

[two sheds]

Yeh apologies, I started the derail - when I can be arsed I'll take it back to the thread where I was contemptuously labeled as a liberal, because I would like an answer - not just 'read this book little man, and then you'll understand what we superior anarchist communists believe'.