The Trump presidency

[CrabbedOne]

I think you're letting your grudge against pro-Clinton liberals blind yourself to the magnitude of what is happening. Trump is centralising power around his inner circle, purging opponents, running roughshod over the rule of law and he is guided by a legit, actual, no-exaggeration-or-hyperbole Nazi. This is not conspiracy theory. Opposing Trump is more important now than proving a point to liberals.

Hysterically calling Trump an all controlling Nazi is playing entirely into his tiny hands politically.

The Nazi thing didn't work with Dubya either or Reagan or Nixon. It's just rushing to a infantile safe space. If you must hype the better comparison is Trump as a Putin wannabe. An effete, elite, fan boy who has not quite got the iron cojones of little Czar Vlad. That he'd reduce most Americans to the pitiful state of Russians groaning submissively under the yoke of Putin and his ruling clique of multi-Billionaire robber barons.

You have to chip away his support's confidence in him. That's not high; a lot of people that voted for him did so with trepidation about how he'd do as President and so far it's a shambles. Go for his flanks and attack his supposed strengths. Keep It Simple Stupid. No big words, no fancy theories. Be petty, be personal, be childishly rude, transgress all politeness, play him at his own low game. Call a corrupt flailing twit what he is. Start every tweet and headline with "Failing Donald Trump" and he'll hang himself.

 

[Pickman's model]

Start every tweet and headline with "Failing Donald Trump" and he'll hang himself.

he'd fuck that up for a start

 

[CrabbedOne]

"Modern Orthodox" aka "Not really Orthodox". Not that I even care. But it seems very cynical to me, this posturing as being more religious than you really are.

Modern Orthodox is a thing you know. You'll be upsetting all of them.

The Kushner's were married by a Modern Orthodox Rabbi. Kushner does seem to rigorously observe the Sabbath. He clearly loves Likud ruled Israel as well. I suspect that's all sincere. Being a ruthless NYC real estate mogul, marrying into The House of Trump and still loving God and your people's old ways are not incompatible.

Dubya was genuinely very pious. Jimmy Carter even more so. A lot of Americans are. Reagan faked being Godly and Trump does so as well without even trying to fake sincerity like the Gipper.

 

[CrabbedOne]

In The Guardian 'The world's doors were closed': Jared Kushner's grandma on refugee life

...
Excerpts from the transcript of the interview with Rae Kushner, taped in 1982 and published in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, have been reported in several Israeli newspapers this week and contain parallels with the situation faced by refugees today.

Rae Kushner was one of the only members of her family to survive the second world war. She talks about the difficulties she faced as a Nazi-era Jewish refugee and criticises the US – beset by an anti-immigrant sentiment at the time – for its reluctance to take people in.

She was born in 1923 in Novogrudok, a city then in Poland and occupied first by the Soviet Union and then the Nazis, who turned it into a Jewish ghetto. Kushner managed to escape with her father and sister through a tunnel, before living in woods for nine months, then smuggling themselves over several borders, ending up in a refugee camp in Italy. Kushner lived there for three and a half years until relatives in the US helpedto get visas for her and her husband Joseph, whom she had met in Hungary.

“A few Jews, friends of my father’s who had stores, left everything and went to Palestine. [Even before the war] they said to my father and mother, ‘Sell everything and run,’ ” Kushner said.

“But we had a problem. We didn’t know where to run. There was no Israel like there is today. There was no place that you could legally go to. It was very hard to get a visa to the United States; it would take years and years.
...

Pretty close to home for Jared Kushner.

 

[Rimbaud]

Hysterically calling Trump an all controlling Nazi is playing entirely into his tiny hands politically.

The Nazi thing didn't work with Dubya either or Reagan or Nixon. It's just rushing to a infantile safe space. If you must hype the better comparison is Trump as a Putin wannabe. An effete, elite, fan boy who has not quite got the iron cojones of little Czar Vlad. That he'd reduce most Americans to the pitiful state of Russians groaning submissively under the yoke of Putin and his ruling clique of multi-Billionaire robber barons.

You have to chip away his support's confidence in him. That's not high; a lot of people that voted for him did so with trepidation about how he'd do as President and so far it's a shambles. Go for his flanks and attack his supposed strengths. Keep It Simple Stupid. No big words, no fancy theories. Be petty, be personal, be childishly rude, transgress all politeness, play him at his own low game. Call a corrupt flailing twit what he is. Start every tweet and headline with "Failing Donald Trump" and he'll hang himself.

He may not be identical to Hitler, but he does seem to be legitimately a threat to liberal democracy. It is not the same as people comparing Bush to Hitler, which WAS really silly. IMO emphasising how he is concentrating power, purging people, and breaking down the separation of powers - and how un-American this is - is the best way to persuade people. I've found if you portray opposition to Trump as a bipartisan movement encompassing Republicans and Democrats to protect the USA from a usurper, Trump supporters become more receptive.

 

[camouflage]

He may not be identical to Hitler, but he does seem to be legitimately a threat to liberal democracy. It is not the same as people comparing Bush to Hitler, which WAS really silly. IMO emphasising how he is concentrating power, purging people, and breaking down the separation of powers - and how un-American this is - is the best way to persuade people. I've found if you portray opposition to Trump as a bipartisan movement encompassing Republicans and Democrats to protect the USA from a usurper, Trump supporters become more receptive.

Isn't Trump just inheriting the concentration of powers passed to him by Obama and Bush before him?

 

[treelover]

I think you're letting your grudge against pro-Clinton liberals blind yourself to the magnitude of what is happening. Trump is centralising power around his inner circle, purging opponents, running roughshod over the rule of law and he is guided by a legit, actual, no-exaggeration-or-hyperbole Nazi. This is not conspiracy theory. Opposing Trump is more important now than proving a point to liberals.

Opposing Trump, here in the UK, how, what priority should it have, more than the NHS?, the NHS Mass March in March is looking anything but mass.

 

[Rimbaud]

Isn't Trump just inheriting the concentration of powers passed to him by Obama and Bush before him?

No. Trump is not communicating with the Republican Party or anyone outside his inner circle, he has purged the entire State Department to force through illegal orders which they would normally be able to oppose, and he fired the attorney-general who pointed out his order was illegal. This is an unprecedented sabotage of democratic processes, separation of powers and rule of law.

 

[Pickman's model]

No. Trump is not communicating with the Republican Party or anyone outside his inner circle, he has purged the entire State Department to force through illegal orders which they would normally be able to oppose, and he fired the attorney-general who pointed out his order was illegal. This is an unprecedented sabotage of democratic processes, separation of powers and rule of law.

what, it's off to the camps with the state department? i think not!

oh, and i am very surprised, as i imagine other people are, to discover theresa may in djt's inner circle.

 

[hash tag]

Is here still there? I have been avoiding news and it seems like everyone else is going or has gone

 

[camouflage]

No. Trump is not communicating with the Republican Party or anyone outside his inner circle, he has purged the entire State Department to force through illegal orders which they would normally be able to oppose, and he fired the attorney-general who pointed out his order was illegal. This is an unprecedented sabotage of democratic processes, separation of powers and rule of law.

Ah, so you mean scary centralizations/encirclings in addition to the what the previous have managed and outside of the usual protocols... ok yup.

 

[coley]

Is here still there? I have been avoiding news and it seems like everyone else is going or has gone

Pull the duvet over your head,things aren't getting any better.

 

[hash tag]

I feel very embarassed for (whispers) for my American rellies (by marriage), had were with me when we voted out

 

[teqniq]

The person who posted this on fb claims it is real. Either way where is the mind bleach when you need it?

 

[killer b]

It's obviously not real. Why would you bother even claiming it (or posting it here for that matter)?

 

[Pickman's model]

It's obviously not real. Why would you bother even claiming it (or posting it here for that matter)?

this is urban. it's what we do. get with the plan, daddy-o

 

[teqniq]

...or posting it here for that matter?

Purely for the amusement value, what with enough real shitty things going on, if I don't find one or two things to laugh about then things look bleak indeed.

 

[killer b]

A naked fat man being held up for us to laugh at/ be disgusted by is a bit dodgy in the first place IMO, but considering Trump attempts to paint all negative coverage of him as lies it's probably best to avoid sharing actual lies about him, isn't it?

 

[teqniq]

Is it really though? I was more chuckling at the spray-tanning aspect of the image... my daughter incidentally finds it funny and at the end of the day laughter is supposedly good for the soul and if he by chance sees it and it causes a rise in his blood pressure all to the better.

 

[purves grundy]

Political Partridge is more my thing for laughter in disturbing times

 

[mojo pixy]

Body-shaming. It's the new radicalism.

 

[killer b]

Is it really though? I was more chuckling at the spray-tanning aspect of the image... my daughter incidentally finds it funny and at the end of the day laughter is supposedly good for the soul and if he by chance sees it and it causes a rise in his blood pressure all to the better.

why did you need the mind bleach then?

 

[teqniq]

why did you need the mind bleach then?

What? Some old guy fat or otherwise being spray-tanned.....? Nevermind.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Some video from Sally Yate's confirmation hearing for the Obama administration:

Senator Sessions Advising Sally Yates Disobey | User Clip | C-SPAN.org

 

[mojo pixy]

The spray-tan thing I can see, but that's not the only aspect of the man being ridiculed by this picture IMO.

It's important to note that the issue of body-shaming Trump isn't truly about him. On reflection I think it's not really possible to ''bully'' the president of the USA, who for all practical purposes has more power than anyone else in the world. Plus this particular person doesn't seem to have any actual shame in the first place so shaming is rather moot from his PoV.

But there are plenty of middle-aged and old folks who look like this. Widespread laughing at his physical grotesqueness may feel to them a lot like widespread laughing at theirs.

 

[teqniq]

...But there are plenty of middle-aged and old folks who look like this. Widespread laughing at his physical grotesqueness may feel to them a lot like widespread laughing at theirs.

I suppose. However I'm not exactly a spring chicken myself (60 in a couple of weeks), but to me it's the absurdity and vanity with thinking that a spray tan is just the thing that you need, anytime in your life but even more so at an advanced age.

 

[CrabbedOne]

what, it's off to the camps with the state department? i think not!

oh, and i am very surprised, as i imagine other people are, to discover theresa may in djt's inner circle.

From what I understood parts of State upped and left. There usually are big partisan shifts but that's unusually. I heard it explained as folk realising their expertise was going to be redundant. For instance if you are involved in consular refugee affairs it's obvious you are buggered under Trump. Other people just take their oath to uphold the Constitution seriously and assume Trump has no intent to be bound by it. It's not that unusual for a President to play fast and lose with US law but few have telegraphed the intent to do that so clearly.

That "Muslim Ban" order and some others were such a badly execute travesty the Attorney General should offered her resignation in protest before Trump sacked her not simply objected. There may be quite a lot of resignations coming.

 

[not-bono-ever]

he has spent his all life being ridiculed, he doesn't care- he has the cash, the bling and the hot gals- he is immune to personal insults. has to be on performance, policy and polity.

 

[CrabbedOne]

I suppose. However I'm not exactly a spring chicken myself (60 in a couple of weeks), but to me it's the absurdity and vanity with thinking that a spray tan is just the thing that you need, anytime in your life but even more so at an advanced age.

That's "vanity-shaming" that is. Trump can't help his horribly deformed psyche you know.

 

[CrabbedOne]

he has spent his all life being ridiculed, he doesn't care- he has the cash, the bling and the hot gals- he is immune to personal insults. has to be on performance, policy and polity.

Oh he does care you just have to pick your targets. Not the wig or make up, tiny hands or vulgarity. Call him a "puppet", challenge his popularity or imply he's not as rich as he says he is for instance and The Donald goes puce rather quickly.