American Politics

[trystan]

3 minutes ago, Astreya said:

This reminds me more and more of the time before Hitler took over Germany. Hitler also had a paramilitary group (the Sturmabteilung) who did his bidding and who were deployed to bully Hitler's opponents in the 1920es and 1930es.

 

Add to this that Mr.Trump refuses to commit to accepting election result as Biden enjoys poll lead, you should be really wary.

i've been very wary since election day, 2016.  his enablers in Congress are also scary too.

[Astreya]

Things could get even more dire, it seems:

Quote

The Trump administration has been consulting the former government lawyer who wrote the legal justification for waterboarding on how the president might try to rule by decree.

 

“The supreme court has said President Obama could [choose not to] enforce immigration laws for about 2 million cases. And why can’t the Trump administration do something similar with immigration – create its own … program, but it could do it in areas beyond that, like healthcare, tax policy, criminal justice, inner city policy. I talked to them a fair amount about cities, because of the disorder.”

 

In a Fox News Sunday interview, Trump declared he would try to use that interpretation to try to force through decrees on healthcare, immigration and “various other plans” over the coming month. The White House consultations with Yoo were first reported by the Axios news website.

 

Constitutional scholars and human rights activists have also pointed to the deployment of paramilitary federal forces against protesters in Portland as a sign that Trump is ready to use this broad interpretation of presidential powers as a means to suppress basic constitutional rights.

 

“This is how it begins,” Laurence Tribe, a Harvard constitutional law professor, wrote on Twitter. “The dictatorial hunger for power is insatiable. If ever there was a time for peaceful civil disobedience, that time is upon us.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/20/trump-john-yoo-lawyer-torture-waterboarding

 

Edited July 20, 2020 by Astreya

[trystan]

 

lemme out of this country.....

[olympe]

Yep. More and more like Hitler. Congratulations. This kind of man is very hard to get rid of - and very likely to start a full-blown world war they're gonna lose. Good luck, and may god be with us all.

[trystan]

22 minutes ago, olympe said:

Yep. More and more like Hitler. Congratulations. This kind of man is very hard to get rid of - and very likely to start a full-blown world war they're gonna lose. Good luck, and may god be with us all.

he scares the #$&**$ out of me.

 

then there's this from an interview trump gave Chris Wallace from FoxNews (!!) on sunday....

 

TRUMP: You don’t know until you see. It depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. I really do.

WALLACE: Are you suggesting that you might not accept the results of the election?

TRUMP: No. I have to see. Look, Hillary Clinton asked me the same thing.

WALLACE: No, I asked you the same thing at the debate.

(https://www.foxnews.com/politics/transcript-fox-news-sunday-interview-with-president-trump)

 

yikes!

[purplehaze]

7 minutes ago, trystan said:

he scares the #$&**$ out of me.

Me too, as well he should.

He is obviously planning to claim a rigged election if he loses (which he MUST!). He will contest the results as long as he possibly can and his enablers will not fail him.

Hopefully he will lose by such a huge margin that there can truly be no doubt, but I don't know how large a margin that would have to be.

He knows he can't just refuse to leave office if he is legitimately voted out. But if he can throw enough doubt on the results it gives him a chance. And even if he is eventually proven to have lost, he will have convinced enough of his followers of the massive voter fraud that they will never accept the legitimacy of his successor.

 

Given his autocratic tendencies already, a second Trump term would be a disaster for this country and our system of government. Yes, I do see terrible similarity to the rise of Hitler.

[Lagie]

47 minutes ago, purplehaze said:

He knows he can't just refuse to leave office if he is legitimately voted out.

He'd be trespassing in the White House if he refused to go, but good luck finding law enforcement who'd go in and forcibly remove him.

[trystan]

this whole presidency regime is one huge covfefe 

 

i agree with you, purplehaze.  i don't know how big of a margin it would have to be either.  

 

also, Lagie, i saw somewhere that the secret service serve the office, not the person, so he would, in fact, be escorted out come noon on January 20, 2021 when (being optimistic here) Joe Biden is inaugurated.

[Fuzzbucket]

16 hours ago, trystan said:

this whole presidency regime is one huge covfefe 

 

i agree with you, purplehaze.  i don't know how big of a margin it would have to be either.  

 

also, Lagie, i saw somewhere that the secret service serve the office, not the person, so he would, in fact, be escorted out come noon on January 20, 2021 when (being optimistic here) Joe Biden is inaugurated.

We can hope. At least I understated the military are - not exactly in favour of the incumbent; that may help.... But I saw to my horror yesterday that an INCREASING number of Americans are starting to believe that the covid death rate is being significantly exaggerated... That's a shame, as his handling of it all has been telling against him up till now....

[trystan]

13 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

But I saw to my horror yesterday that an INCREASING number of Americans are starting to believe that the covid death rate is being significantly exaggerated... That's a shame, as his handling of it all has been telling against him up till now....

significantly exaggerated? must have been Fox News.  CNN and my local ABC stations were suggesting the case counts and everything about it are being grossly under-reported - by like 10 times! which makes 3.2 million cases really 32 million cases!

 

*glares at calendar* why is it not election day yet?!?

[Fuzzbucket]

This - to my great alarm - was a serious poll.  Axios-Ipsos.

 

Prepare to weep:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/21/us-coronavirus-death-toll-public-opinion-poll-accuracy

[trystan]

yikes!

 

however, it's quite a 'Murcan thing to do/say - "i'm done with the virus, i've had enough, it can go away now."  sigh.  my country sucks, and i apologise most people are such idjits.

[Astreya]

I wonder how they will explain away the fact that more and more hospitals are overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients in the US (particularly in Florida and California). I guess they will start believing when they need hospital care and are turned away.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/07/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday/index.html

 

But with Mr.Trump at the helm who was actually inciting his follower to go against vaccinations, it might get tricky even for him to explain his u-turn on this to them.

https://www.psypost.org/2020/04/new-study-finds-trumps-tweets-intensify-anti-vaccine-attitudes-among-his-supporters-56359

 

Edited July 22, 2020 by Astreya

[olympe]

2 hours ago, Astreya said:

I wonder how they will explain away the fact that more and more hospitals are overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients in the US (particularly in Florida and California). I guess they will start believing when they need hospital care and are turned away.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/07/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday/index.html

Nah, not happening. It's not covid, but the regular flu (wich is just as lethal as covid, but nobody gives a damn about it - especially not the evil media).

 

And regarding explaining his U-turn - it's easy. He was just joking. Or he didn't mean it that way. He has always known that a vaccine is the only way to go, which is why he has secured enough doses for all US citizens. Because he's a genius, and the greatest, and managed to act before anyone else... 

 

[trystan]

2 hours ago, Astreya said:

I wonder how they will explain away the fact that more and more hospitals are overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients in the US (particularly in Florida and California).

it's a Dem hoax and will go away after Biden has been elected president.

 

5 minutes ago, olympe said:

And regarding explaining his U-turn - it's easy. He was just joking. Or he didn't mean it that way.

actually he doesn't joke, or so he says anyway.

 

i mean he IS a joke, but that's another story

[Fuzzbucket]

[olympe]

15 hours ago, trystan said:

actually he doesn't joke, or so he says anyway.

Best joke ever.

15 hours ago, trystan said:

i mean he IS a joke, but that's another story

I stand corrected. Second best joke ever.  

 

@Fuzzbucket That one bears repeating.  

[Astreya]

Somehow I find it ironic that the second amendment of the US constitution was designed so that the citizens of the US would be able to defend themselves against oppression, and to support the civic duty to act in concert in defence of the state. But the people who cry loudest for their second amendment rights are those who most support the autocratic tendencies of their Great Leader Mr.Trump who rallies his paramilitary troops to bully and strike down protesters who want to protect (or rather attain as they are still severely lacking) their civil liberties.

[Fuzzbucket]

1 hour ago, Astreya said:

 the autocratic tendencies of their Great Leader Mr.Trump who rallies his paramilitary troops to bully and strike down protesters who want to protect (or rather attain as they are still severely lacking) their civil liberties.

 

And teargassing the mayor....

[trystan]

4 hours ago, olympe said:

20 hours ago, trystan said:

actually he doesn't joke, or so he says anyway.

Best joke ever.

20 hours ago, trystan said:

i mean he IS a joke, but that's another story

I stand corrected. Second best joke ever.  

i'm glad you're amused!  

 

 

4 hours ago, Astreya said:

Somehow I find it ironic that the second amendment of the US constitution was designed so that the citizens of the US would be able to defend themselves against oppression, and to support the civic duty to act in concert in defence of the state. But the people who cry loudest for their second amendment rights are those who most support the autocratic tendencies of their Great Leader Mr.Trump who rallies his paramilitary troops to bully and strike down protesters who want to protect (or rather attain as they are still severely lacking) their civil liberties.

what makes me scratch my head is when a sane sounding person talks about this reform or updating that policy, the trumpists are all "they're coming for your guns!" - like common sense gun laws or background checks or banning assault rifles.  i mean, yikes.

 

some americans and their love for guns is something that the rest of the world, and even some other americans (like me) just don't quite understand....

[RainDear]

Another irony?

 

Protest masks/lockdown you are Trump's friend.

 

Protest racial inequality, brutality, tyranny, and murder and you're a terrorist.

[trystan]

27 minutes ago, RainDear said:

Protest racial inequality, brutality, tyranny, and murder and you're a terrorist.

whoops, i'm a terrorist then!  

[RainDear]

54 minutes ago, trystan said:

whoops, i'm a terrorist then!  

Me too!👍

[trystan]

yaay! let's go to a protest together!  but let's NOT get tear-gassed. no thanks.

[olympe]

1 hour ago, trystan said:

i'm glad you're amused!  

It's called black humor. Or, to translate a German saying: It's humor if you laugh about it anyway. (Meaning that you laught when things are so bad they aren't funny any more.)