The Trump Presidency (Act V - The One Where Everybody Dies)

[phiwum]

But by that same token, some of them are evil, right? Not that evil means anything objectively, but pushing corporate interests instead of your constituency's, valuing hyperpartisanship over the welfare of the nation, and attempting to excuse your colleagues' moral crimes for the sake of political expediency are all pretty evil deeds for someone whose job is to do the opposite of all of those things.

Yes, some GOP politicians are evil in that respect. And I'm not sure what the numbers are in terms of the legislature, but it's discouraging at best.

But the GOP also consists of many other folk, people who are decent whether or not I disagree with some of their opinions.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Yes, some GOP politicians are evil in that respect. And I'm not sure what the numbers are in terms of the legislature, but it's discouraging at best.

But the GOP also consists of many other folk, people who are decent whether or not I disagree with some of their opinions.

I'm pretty sure quadraginta was referring to GOP legislators, not everyone who identifies as Republican.

 

[phiwum]

I'm pretty sure quadraginta was referring to GOP legislators, not everyone who identifies as Republican.

Could be. I think there are a few more decent Republican legislators than he suggests. Some of them rarely get the spotlight and so I can't name them because I get my info from national news. Others, I think, he's omitted from his count.

In the Senate, I consider Collins, Flake, McCain, Murkowski more or less decent folk. They sometimes make choices I despise, but I think they care about the nation.

I admit my opinion comes from partial information and I could be wrong about any of them. McCain, for instance, chose Palin as a running mate, a disgraceful choice. I lost a lot of respect for him at that time.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Yes, the Republicans are evil. Evil, I tells ya!

Don't get me wrong. Republicans have, especially in recent years, gerrymandered to a dreadful extent (Dems too, in certain areas, though I'm not sure if the offenses are equal). Some R's have also pushed nonsense conspiracies about voter fraud. McConnell purposely postponed the filling of an SCJ position for blatantly partisan reasons, barely pretending that this is based on precedence.

There's a lot that Republicans have to answer for recently. But there are also principled Republicans who have always supported representative government. Your demonization of the Republicans with hyperbolic claims really doesn't do a damned thing to encourage democratic principles.

And unfortunately all that GOP cheating and courting one-issue voters for the last 4 decades gave us the TEA Party and Trump while the normal GOP legislators became fewer and fewer and wield almost no power in the government at the moment.

 

[Mumbles]

In the Senate, I consider Collins, Flake, McCain, Murkowski more or less decent folk. They sometimes make choices I despise, but I think they care about the nation.

Flake is more concerned with decorum than policy. And I say that as a person who doesn't trust the generic "He voted with Dolt 45 97% of the time" statistics unless they know they exclude things like naming buildings, ceremonial holidays that nobody cares about, and so forth. Collins is decent from what I know, but she's the tail end of decency in the national GOP, and is from the same state that gave us the perfect white supremacist, anti-worker predecessor to Dolt 45, one Paul LePage (Granted, he'd be out if progressives would just get their act together and unite behind a single person, but that's another issue). I've said a few times before that McCain's a wonderful man in person, but can't really be trusted in terms of policy - same as Flake.

In other words, this is really a weak list.

 

[Minoosh]

The story was updated to include vehement denials from the protesters.

And in a shocking turn of events, it also included video of them doing the exact thing they denied doing.

What a sick video. A woman is heard haranguing young Latinos and others outside Arizona's capitol building. She's carrying a gun and, it appears, following people as they try to get away from her. Toward the end she offers to put the gun in her car if they will talk to her. I can't quite work out why this was posted on YouTube with the headline, "Protesters terrorize children and families," but the woman shooting the video would not have put that headline on it. If she shared it on social media, could someone with different views post it on YouTube with a different headline? If it were just a tad more unhinged I'd think it was satire.

The people she films walking away do not immediately recede - the footage is shaky and the people she's harassing stay the same distance away from the camera, as if she is following (stalking) them. One person tells her to "get educated" and another woman briefly gets in her face, but mostly people hurry away. We never see her face.

I wonder if Trump will be called a race traitor for making a deal on DACA. I'd start spreading that meme myself but I'm an idiot on social media.

 

[Mumbles]

Brown people.

Yep. This is why we hear whining about "busloads of black/Hispanic people from ,<nsert name of nearest city here>." In truth, these are common among church groups and other social groups that rent busses to drive people to polling locations - with the "Souls to the Polls" efforts being the most famous example. But, if you're a white supremacist, you see any group of non-white people as strange and horrifying, and necessarily involved in some sort of evildoing. Thus LePage's fantasies of black men selling drugs and impregnating white teens in Maine, or Trump's claim that "Mexicans" are drug dealers and rapists, or his continued claims that the (long-ago cleared) Central Park 5 should still be in prison, or the claims on this board that protestors in Ferguson, Baltimore, and other areas were necessarily "rioters and looters", even when video evidence showed them to be simply standing around in their own backyards. It's pretty basic, Birth of a Nation style white supremacism.

(And yes, this does make Toupee Fiasco the most plainly racist president since Woodrow Wilson)

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

There's a lot that Republicans have to answer for recently. But there are also principled Republicans who have always supported representative government. Your demonization of the Republicans with hyperbolic claims to encourage democratic principles.

The way the GOP has been acting really doesn't do a damned thing to encourage democratic principles.

I don't suffer even the least bit of guilt for pointing that out.

I only wish it really was hyperbolic, but if anything they are worse.

 

[phiwum]

The way the GOP has been acting does nothing to encourage democratic principles.

I don't suffer even the least bit of guilt for pointing that out.

I only wish it really was hyperbolic, but if anything they are worse.

I take your point. I'm unhappy with the general trends of both the establishment and the Trumpists. But the GOP consists of more than these two groups.

I'm an independent voter, leaning Democratic these years, partly because I view the Republicans as unprincipled. But there are decent conservatives, even if I don't agree with them on every issue.

 

[quadraginta]

I take your point. I'm unhappy with the general trends of both the establishment and the Trumpists. But the GOP consists of more than these two groups.

I'm an independent voter, leaning Democratic these years, partly because I view the Republicans as unprincipled. But there are decent conservatives, even if I don't agree with them on every issue.

Any and all pretense of decency they might attempt to present is stripped away and shown to be the tissue thin facade that it is by continuing to support the GOP.

It's really as simple as that. They can't have it both ways.

 

[phiwum]

Any and all pretense of decency they might attempt to present is stripped away and shown to be the tissue thin facade that it is by continuing to support the GOP.

It's really as simple as that. They can't have it both ways.

Most Republicans are, like most Americans, low information voters. They don't pay attention. I'd rather such folk don't vote, and mostly they don't.

Some Republicans are dedicated to some issues, like a conservative Supreme Court. They support Trump because he's helped on that front. I'm not at all willing to forgive this narrow view, especially given McConnell's shenanigans.

Other Republicans favor racism and nationalism. **** them.

Still others think that conservative values are best for the country, dislike Trump but want to support the party. So long as they don't compromise their values when Trump is in power, I can respect them.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Most Republicans are, like most Americans, low information voters. They don't pay attention. I'd rather such folk don't vote, and mostly they don't.

Some Republicans are dedicated to some issues, like a conservative Supreme Court. They support Trump because he's helped on that front. I'm not at all willing to forgive this narrow view, especially given McConnell's shenanigans.

Other Republicans favor racism and nationalism. **** them.

Still others think that conservative values are best for the country, dislike Trump but want to support the party. So long as they don't compromise their values when Trump is in power, I can respect them.

So how much can said GOP values be overlooked when it comes to Trump and still earn your respect?

 

[Trebuchet]

The way the GOP has been acting really doesn't do a damned thing to encourage democratic principles.

The R's are EXTREMELY fond of saying "It's a republic, not a democracy". Democracy and progress are really bad things these days.

 

[pgwenthold]

The story was updated to include vehement denials from the protesters.

And in a shocking turn of events, it also included video of them doing the exact thing they denied doing.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who caught that. I saw the "update" part about their denials, but the story describes their actions in videos.

But hey, if you just deny it, who cares what the video shows. It's just fake news.

 

[Tero]

Brown people.

 

[Stacko]

But hey, if you just deny it, who cares what the video shows. It's just fake news.

It's just like that idiot Trump made ambassador to the Netherlands.

 

[Mumbles]

Trump supporters shout "illegal" and "go home" at dark-skinned lawmakers - including one who is Navajo

"At one point, a woman who was part of the pro-Trump group yelled at the LUCHA activists, 'You don’t deserve more money just for showing up … You don’t get more money ’cause you’re brown.'"

An insightful statement from an unlikely source.

ETA: actually, government jobs tend to be better at pay equity than private-sector jobs. This partly explains why racial minorities are more likely to work in the government - and why such workers are often stereotyped as "lazy" and "undeserving".

 

[Trebuchet]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who caught that. I saw the "update" part about their denials, but the story describes their actions in videos.

But hey, if you just deny it, who cares what the video shows. It's just fake news.

Got a link to the correct video? I tried but just got them talking to some doofus legislator in a goofy hat.

 

[Trebuchet]

What a tool!

 

[KatieG]

I think the odds of my prediction that we would be in the worst Consitutional Crisis since Watergate before the end of the year being right just went up dramatically.

That's so scary.