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I just finished Bob Woodward's book and I've also read others like "Everything Trump Touches Dies" and Fire and Fury. Woodward's is probably the most complementary I've read. However Woodward's book paints the picture of an egotistical moron way in over his head who lies about everything. And that's the best picture any of these books paint.
Trump is absolutely sure he is the smartest guy in the world. He has zero doubt. I heard a quote from someone who had worked in the White House that Trump is a very evil Forest Gump. He's probably dumber than Gump.
About tariffs Woodward's book talks about Trump kept obsessing about tariffs and his advisors kept distracting him with other things. At one point one of his advisors confronted him asking him where he got his ideas about trade policy. Trump didn't know, he said he's just had them for more than 30 years. As the people who were holding him back got fired or quit, he's become more unleashed.
Even with all the reading I've done my brain still balks at how someone that massively incompetent managed to get elected to the highest office.
I saw an interview with Hillary Clinton last night and she had a chilling prediction. Regardless of the outcome of the midterm elections, Trump is probably going to go on a firing spree right after the election and fire anyone who has been attempting to hold him back. If Congress next year is as complicit as it has been, that's very bad for the US and the world.
I think she's right.
A large segment of the population has become numb to people yelling wolf. For 8 years there were people screaming about Obama being a secret Muslim, not born an American citizen, and anything else they could say to erode his authority. We've also saw the House conduct a two year investigation of the burning of the consulate in Benghazi that got nowhere, ridiculous rumors like a number of prominent Democrats were involved in a child trafficking ring headquartered from a DC pizza parlor and a host of other outrageous claims.
The right wing media played up most of these stories like they were real, but while not believing them, the rest of the media gave them more attention than they deserved. Any analysis beyond the surface of any of these things revealed they were tissue paper covering lies. They didn't even hold up to internal logic tests even before you got to the facts.
Now we are getting pummeled daily with stories Trump is horribly corrupt and incompetent and a lot of people are just writing them off, or at least many of them, as the left doing to the right what the right has been trying to do to the left.
Some of these claims may be exaggerated, but some have been proven as people have confessed in the Mueller investigation and quite a few others are internally consistent. Even before you apply external facts, they hold together on their own, even if they do seem outrageous.
And the facts are damning all on their own. Trump's family detention policy is a disaster, his handling of the Puerto Rico hurricane is a disaster, his attempts at diplomacy are incredibly bad and could lead to destabilization of the international order, his trade policies are based on prejudices he's held for decades with no logical analysis to back them up, and the list goes on. Trump is a Malignant Narcissist:
How to Tell You're Dealing with a Malignant Narcissist
and all indications are he's not very bright either. Those two things in and of themselves are very, very bad traits for anybody with even the slightest bit of power. Somebody like that shouldn't assistant shift manager at a McDonalds and probably wouldn't last a week in that job.
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lolachampcar
Well-Known Member
The pendulum should swing. If the opposing side has any sense, they will spend the next two years shedding sunlight on the country's decision to put this guy in charge. If they do not, they will attempt to impeach and we will have a second term ala B. Clinton.
As for watching Clinton last night (presumably on Rachel), I had to turn it off almost immediately. She has no understanding that she it very much a player in the erosion of morality (the right/wrong not pulpit version) of our nation and yet she speaks like the Pope with such moral authority. Folks, we have lost our minds.
As for watching Clinton last night (presumably on Rachel), I had to turn it off almost immediately. She has no understanding that she it very much a player in the erosion of morality (the right/wrong not pulpit version) of our nation and yet she speaks like the Pope with such moral authority. Folks, we have lost our minds.
Trump can't fire the governors of the 50 sovereign states.
Congress *really* should have impeached Trump and removed him from office already, but it requires 2/3 of the Senate, and at least 1/3 of the Senate (most of the Senate Republicans) are completely worthless people who not only lack principles but also lack any self-protective instinct, which is what makes it so hard. I'm pretty sure there's already a majority in the Senate to remove Trump from office, but James Madison screwed up when he wrote the impeachment provision so it requires 2/3. Big mistake.
Honestly, the only winning move for the Republican Party was to impeach Trump *themselves*. He's digging himself into deeper and deeper holes and they have tied themselves to him.
However, if the federal government fails due to Trump, we still have 50 state governments, and they are *not* going to go down nearly so easily.
bhtooefr
Active Member
Not all 50, no, but a lot already have gone down.
There's a reason why there's fear of a Constitutional Convention being called - the Republicans are close enough that they might be able to rewrite the whole thing.
There's a reason why there's fear of a Constitutional Convention being called - the Republicans are close enough that they might be able to rewrite the whole thing.
Pfffft. No, they wouldn't have a chance. They simply don't have the popularity.
I don't know if you've been following the governor race polling this year. Kansas, which has been controlled by particularly deranged Republicans, is probably going to toss them out. The fascist leadership of the Republican Party has been going too far and the old-line Republicans are endorsing Democrats. "Republican" Governors in Maryland and Massachusetts have basically abandoned the national Republican Party entirely.
The polling trends are *brutal* for the fascist Republican Party. Lesser trends destroyed the Whigs.
The fascist Republican Party is doing a lot of damage, but they're down to the point where they can only win elections by stealing them. They've been stealing them for 18 years solid now and are getting more and more desperate in their tactics. They assume that they can keep on subverting democracy indefinitely, and that liberals won't eventually arm up and kill them. History proves them wrong.
I hope we can get rid of the fascist Republicans the easy, electoral way, but I know they're going down one way or another. They are far too unpopular to survive. Again, *actual dictators* pay attention to their popularity, but the Republican Party leadership does not.
They don't need popularity. If they can get a constitutional convention, they can probably get a majority at the convention because there are more red states. That may change after this election, but it may not.
No, they need popularity.
I don't think you understand how this works, and apparently neither do the Republicans. You can't just force through deeply unpopular laws by gaming the rules. This is what led to the execution of the crowned heads of Europe. When the Taney court issued the Dred Scott decision, the courts in Ohio and the police in Ohio refused to follow it, and started aggressively declaring slaves to be free. The Jayhawkers didn't accept the Border Ruffians' attempt to manipulate the rules in favor of slavery in Kansas, which is why "Bleeding Kansas" started in 1854.
Lest you think such days are in the past, I point to marijuana law enforcement: Sessions threatened to enforce federal marijuana law in Colorado; the Colorado Governor, with massive public support and the backing of the state police, threatened to arrest any DEA agent who so much as jaywalked; Sessions backed down. Supposedly the President has priority over the states with the use of the National Guard, but multiple state governors ordered their National Guard units back from the border during the recent abuses by ICE, and the units followed the governors' orders.
You remember the fall of the USSR? The people who ran the coup against Gorbachev attempted to order the army in against the seceding Republics, and half the army units promptly switched sides, while others refused to deploy on either side.
Successful takeovers are done during a moment of popularity. In Hungary, Orban seized power while he had >60% popularity; Putin watches the polls *all the time* apparently, and even conducts his own polls; even the Myanmar military, which is running roughly six campaigns of genocide against minority ethnic groups, remains largely popular among the 68%-majority ethnic majority group -- and handed over a lot of power to the civilian (majority-ethnic-group) government when they saw their popularity disappearing. (So they're popular again now.)
Republican fascists arguably had a window of opportunity to destroy democracy in the US during the Reagan administration, when they were very popular, and during the period right after 9/11/2001, when they were also quite popular. They simply don't have the numbers now; they are deeply unpopular. Landslide unpopular. (They claimed that 60% vote for Reagan was a landslide, so 61% opposition to the Republican Party is clearly a landslide.)
I have to assume that the Republican leaders know no history whatsoever, because they are walking the path which leads to communist revolutions -- the path of arrogance, autocracy, and disregard for popular opinion.
bhtooefr
Active Member
One problem, however, is that in an armed conflict between Trump supporters and those that oppose Trump... well, guess who has all the guns. And, as the firearms manufacturers are also in bed with Trump and Putin...
There are a few supporters of violent revolution on the very, very far left, but they tend to use other methods anyway, and they'd be massively outgunned in a hypothetical civil war.
There are a few supporters of violent revolution on the very, very far left, but they tend to use other methods anyway, and they'd be massively outgunned in a hypothetical civil war.
Off Shore
Off Topic Member
bhtooefr
Active Member
The Republicans are not popular now, but many of the people in power now believe 9/11 was an inside job (I don't believe it was) because they are racists who don't believe brown people can be that smart and they tend to believe wild conspiracy theories anyway. I could see them ginning up a real false flag attack to get the public rallying around the flag. These guys aren't very smart, so they could be exposed quickly, but they could get away with it long enough to get the popularity they need to pull off a coup.
The Orange Mussolini is in power against the odds in the first place. The polls were all predicting a Clinton win, though the margin narrowed in the last two weeks from a double digit blowout. She still won the popular vote.
I'm not sure how Trump will go. I suspect the Senate Republicans would prefer to see Mueller indict, try, and convict Trump while in office, then Pence would take over under the 25th Amendment and when Trump challenges they can still vote against him but still be able to claim they did not vote to remove a president by impeachment from their own party next time they run for president. That would take a Supreme Court ruling, but I expect Roberts would rule with the liberal wing on that one. Gorsuch might too.
If the election is a blow out and the Republicans are looking at minorities in both houses, the Senate Republicans might go for impeachment at that point. The map is very much against Senate Democrats this year, but it favors them in 2020. More than 20 Republicans will be defending seats in 2020 and if Democrats win big this year they will see throwing Trump under the bus is more likely to keep them in office. Especially if some deep red states flip like Ted Cruz in Texas.
If Trump is not removed by 2020, he will run again and I think he will lose if the Democrats put up anybody more likeable then Clinton. Which is just about anyone.
Post Trump I expect the Republican Party will rip itself to sheds. Both parties are made up of coalitions, but while the Democrats squabble with one another, they do compromise and come together in the end. The extreme behavior by the GOP has helped them pull together better than ever.
The Republicans have a different coalition. The saying goes that Democrats come together when they fall in love behind a candidate, but Republicans fall in line. There were Republicans who hated Trump but voted for him because he was the party's nominee. My father (life long Republican) was having a crisis in 2016 because he was torn between falling in line like he always has and the realization that his party was not what it used to be. I don't know how he eventually voted because he's refused to talk politics since the election.
The Republican coalition has the traditional Republicans: economic conservatives (usually with incomes above the mean, usually better educated, living in the suburbs), social conservatives (usually conservative Christians, very heavy representation in the Bible Belt), neocons (Project for a New American Century types, largely discredited since GW Bush's disastrous wars), libertarians (who want virtually no government in anything), and unhappy Southern whites (who are still fighting the Civil War).
These factions blamed each other for Bush's failures and they will likely double down when Trump's failures become impossible to ignore (like the economy blowing up and/or international alliances falling apart and/or Mueller gets him). Each faction will claim it was because Trump didn't embrace their values more and the party may break into a number of smaller parties.
But there is still a chance the Republicans could lock in a permanent minority for a generation or more. Elected Republicans do not like Trump, but they are enabling him. And the odds the Democrats take the Senate this year are slim. If the Republicans hold onto the Senate, they will continue to ram through extremely conservative judges who will influence the judicial branch for decades. That's part of their plan for minority rule.
The Orange Mussolini is in power against the odds in the first place. The polls were all predicting a Clinton win, though the margin narrowed in the last two weeks from a double digit blowout. She still won the popular vote.
I'm not sure how Trump will go. I suspect the Senate Republicans would prefer to see Mueller indict, try, and convict Trump while in office, then Pence would take over under the 25th Amendment and when Trump challenges they can still vote against him but still be able to claim they did not vote to remove a president by impeachment from their own party next time they run for president. That would take a Supreme Court ruling, but I expect Roberts would rule with the liberal wing on that one. Gorsuch might too.
If the election is a blow out and the Republicans are looking at minorities in both houses, the Senate Republicans might go for impeachment at that point. The map is very much against Senate Democrats this year, but it favors them in 2020. More than 20 Republicans will be defending seats in 2020 and if Democrats win big this year they will see throwing Trump under the bus is more likely to keep them in office. Especially if some deep red states flip like Ted Cruz in Texas.
If Trump is not removed by 2020, he will run again and I think he will lose if the Democrats put up anybody more likeable then Clinton. Which is just about anyone.
Post Trump I expect the Republican Party will rip itself to sheds. Both parties are made up of coalitions, but while the Democrats squabble with one another, they do compromise and come together in the end. The extreme behavior by the GOP has helped them pull together better than ever.
The Republicans have a different coalition. The saying goes that Democrats come together when they fall in love behind a candidate, but Republicans fall in line. There were Republicans who hated Trump but voted for him because he was the party's nominee. My father (life long Republican) was having a crisis in 2016 because he was torn between falling in line like he always has and the realization that his party was not what it used to be. I don't know how he eventually voted because he's refused to talk politics since the election.
The Republican coalition has the traditional Republicans: economic conservatives (usually with incomes above the mean, usually better educated, living in the suburbs), social conservatives (usually conservative Christians, very heavy representation in the Bible Belt), neocons (Project for a New American Century types, largely discredited since GW Bush's disastrous wars), libertarians (who want virtually no government in anything), and unhappy Southern whites (who are still fighting the Civil War).
These factions blamed each other for Bush's failures and they will likely double down when Trump's failures become impossible to ignore (like the economy blowing up and/or international alliances falling apart and/or Mueller gets him). Each faction will claim it was because Trump didn't embrace their values more and the party may break into a number of smaller parties.
But there is still a chance the Republicans could lock in a permanent minority for a generation or more. Elected Republicans do not like Trump, but they are enabling him. And the odds the Democrats take the Senate this year are slim. If the Republicans hold onto the Senate, they will continue to ram through extremely conservative judges who will influence the judicial branch for decades. That's part of their plan for minority rule.
You are a wise man and trigger many thoughts. Thanks.
I'm still worried the coming midterm election will be thrown to the Reeps by corrupt Republican election officials with possible collusion of the Russians. If so, then what do we do?
That's what the Confederacy thought. They were massively, massively, wrong. They're still massively wrong.
The remaining neocons have fled to the Democratic party (and yes, they're discredited and pretty small now).
The libertarians are joining the Democratic party as soon as they develop an ounce of rational thought, because the Republicans have very openly become the party of Spying on Everyone and Locking Children in Cages. We have a pretty big libertarian wing in the Democratic Party now, for better or worse.
The economic conservatives have mostly fled to the Democratic Party too, with the exception of the really, really stupid ones. You have to be extremely stupid to think that the Republican Party, party of massive budget-breaking deficit spending, is "economically conservative".
The right-wing Christians are interesting because the Republian elite has mostly given them lip service and betrayed them when push comes to shove. There is evidence that they are returning to their old, pre-1980s attitude of "stay apart from and away from politics"; some of the larger conventions have been expelling the corrupt politics-from-the-pulpit pastors from power. Trump is personally offensive to any right-wing Christian with the slightest bit of morality. On top of this, the younger right-wing Christians often don't see anything wrong with gay people.
The right-wing Christians and the people still fighting the Civil War are often the same group.
There are fewer and fewer of the racists who are still fighting the Civil War with each generation. They are, however, Trump's base.
There are very, very few people who actually support any of Republican Party policy these days. The Republican Party is coasting on tribal loyalty -- people who think of themselves as "Republicans" but don't actually support anything the Republicans do, don't have any understanding whatsoever of anything related to government policy, and are simply voting out of tribal loyalty.
It's a form of affinity fraud. Affinity fraud is very powerful and quite successful, but the Republican Party has been running *exactly the same* affinity fraud since 1980, when Ronald Reagan claimed to be an economic conservative (he wasn't), claimed to be a good right-wing Christian (he wasn't), claimed to be a libertarian (he was all about big government), and so on. 40 years is actually a pretty good run for a *single* scam, and I think people have become rather immune to it. The time to attempt a takeover was in the past, when the affinity fraud was new, before the population had 40 years to develop resistance to it.
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I keep thinking about this stuff from the point of view of someone who wants to overthrow democracy and establish a dictatorship, and I keep making *professional criticisms* of their tactics and strategy on an *effectiveness* level. Sometimes I feel a bit weird about this. (Please, would-be-dictators, don't take my advice, I don't really want you to succeed.)
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Remember what AMLO did in Mexico when his first Presidential election was stolen. It's a role model.
The most likely place for an election theft is the Kansas governor's race, where the "Republican" candidate for governor, Kobach, is currently in charge of the election systems and has already been punished by courts for illegally denying people their right to vote.
All the traditional business Republicans in Kansas have endorsed the Democratic candidate. Obviously.
Kansas is having a bit of a problem where the sane people are simply emigrating, so even as the lunatic right-wing becomes less and less popular, they can retain the vote count because the people who can't stand them move to Missouri. (There is a similar problem happening in Israel, actually, where sane Jewish people with dual citizenship, of whom there are a lot, are moving to any other country whatsoever.)
Due to the difficulty in moving out of the US, this is only a problem in certain rural states. It isn't even a problem in Texas.
I once thought the racists were a shrinking minority, but they became very active during Obama's presidency.
There has been talk lately about how the Republican Party has become a cult. The conservative media has been very effective at conning their base into believing all sorts of things that are not only untrue, but in some cases impossible.
Trump has awakened some to the toxicity within their ranks. Rick Wilson was a mover and shaker within the party and thought the racists were a tiny minority, but he's come to realize they are a serious problem and there were a lot more of them than he thought.
The Republicans are losing members, but they still have enough people bamboozled in the cult to be dangerous. I'm also concerned that there are several things that could set off quite a few of those followers into violence. Ultimately the violence would probably be put down, but it could get messy.
lolachampcar
Well-Known Member
The "Republicans" need to read up on the Boers as Apartheid fell. They are facing the same fate. The real issue is how much damage they are going to do in the interim or GWAD forbid, they use the current momentum to push the pendulum further then manage to keep it there.
South Africa was *incredibly* lucky to have de Klerk. He was a National Party member, Afrikaaner, apartheid supporter, etc., He became Prime Minister... and dismantled apartheid and established majority rule, peacefully.
De Klerk was quoted once as saying that the reason apartheid failed was that the whites were too greedy -- basically, that if they'd actually given the good land to the black majority and taken small sections of crappy land for themselves, they would have been able to make it work. (He's not wrong.)
There is no de Klerk for Israel -- Rabin probably would have been Israel's de Klerk, but he was assassinated by right-wing extremists. This is why the modern state of Israel is headed on an inevitable path of self-destruction (with world isolation coming first, as it did for South Africa, but with no de Klerk to rescue them).
To ad tp the anecdotes this has been a long term trend for the Reeps cf. Pete Wilson's tenure as governor of California. He was known as a moderate (memory may be faulty here). I was extremely offended by his support of Proposition 187 which was eventually declared unconstitutional. Around 5/9th of voters approved it!! That's millions of voters.
California Proposition 187 - Wikipedia
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