Last night I watched Anthony Scaramucci on CNN, who said to Erin Burnett that Trump is “not a racist,” but is “transactional,” meaning that he will say or do anything to get elected, no matter how vile.
I don’t agree. Only racists openly appeal to other racists for their support. Only racists stir up hatred toward others based on their race, ethnicity, or skin color. Anyone who appeals to racists by tapping into racist views is by definition a racist.
I receive posts from Andrew Tobias, who is an author who writes about politics and personal finance. He sent this last night, written by Michael Gerson, who was George W. Bush’s chief speechwriter and now writes for the Washington Post:
Bush 43’s Chief Speechwriter On Trump
Devastating:
The Return Of America’s Cruelest Passion
By Michael GersonI had fully intended to ignore President Trump’s latest round of racially charged taunts against an African American elected official, and an African American activist, and an African American journalist and a whole city with a lot of African Americans in it. I had every intention of walking past Trump’s latest outrages and writing about the self-destructive squabbling of the Democratic presidential field, which has chosen to shame former vice president Joe Biden for the sin of being an electable, moderate liberal.
But I made the mistake of pulling James Cone’s ‘The Cross and the Lynching Tree‘ off my shelf — a book designed to shatter convenient complacency. Cone recounts the case of a white mob in Valdosta, Ga., in 1918 that lynched an innocent man named Haynes Turner.
Turner’s enraged wife, Mary, promised justice for the killers. The sheriff responded by arresting her and then turning her over to the mob, which included women and children. According to one source, Mary was ‘stripped, hung upside down by the ankles, soaked with gasoline, and roasted to death. In the midst of this torment, a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and her infant fell to the ground and was stomped to death.’
God help us. It is hard to write the words. This evil — the evil of white supremacy, resulting in dehumanization, inhumanity and murder — is the worst stain, the greatest crime, of U.S. history. It is the thing that nearly broke the nation. It is the thing that proved generations of Christians to be vicious hypocrites. It is the thing that turned normal people into moral monsters, capable of burning a grieving widow to death and killing her child.
When the president of the United States plays with that fire or takes that beast out for a walk, it is not just another political event, not just a normal day in campaign 2020.
It is a cause for shame. It is the violation of martyrs’ graves. It is obscene graffiti on the Lincoln Memorial. It is, in the eyes of history, the betrayal — the re-betrayal — of Haynes and Mary Turner and their child. And all of this is being done by an ignorant and arrogant narcissist reviving racist tropes for political gain, indifferent to the wreckage he is leaving, the wounds he is ripping open.
Like, I suspect, many others, I am finding it hard to look at resurgent racism as just one in a series of presidential offenses or another in a series of Republican errors. Racism is not just another wrong. The Antietam battlefield is not just another plot of ground. The Edmund Pettus Bridge is not just another bridge. The balcony outside Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel is not just another balcony. As U.S. history hallows some causes, it magnifies some crimes.
What does all this mean politically? It means that Trump’s divisiveness is getting worse, not better.He makes racist comments, appeals to racist sentiments and inflames racist passions. The rationalization that he is not, deep down in his heart, really a racist is meaningless. Trump’s continued offenses mean that a large portion of his political base is energized by racist tropes and the language of white grievance. And it means — whatever their intent — that those who play down, or excuse, or try to walk past these offenses are enablers.
Some political choices are not just stupid or crude. They represent the return of our country’s cruelest, most dangerous passion. Such racism indicts Trump. Treating racism as a typical or minor matter indicts us.
Tobias writes:
Consequential times.
Help.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Trump really and totally “hates himself” and rightfully so…thus his SICK deeds.
So we’re now turning to the man who wrote speeches for the man who caused the needless deaths of roughly a millions Iraqis, nearly 5,000 American troops and the loss of trillions of dollars to speak about evil? Maybe we need to be careful about who we climb into bed with. Fleas spread quickly and they’re very hard to combat.
Just for the record, Harry S. Truman needlessly caused the death of many Japanese citizens — and he didn’t just “write speeches” — he actually personally ordered their deaths. Does that make him equal to Trump or perhaps worse? Does that mean that every word Harry S. Truman ever uttered needs to be dismissed as untruthful or worthless? Is Gerson is far less evil than Harry S. Truman and FDR, who both caused the” needless” deaths of more people than Bush and didn’t just write speeches? Are all the speechwriters of LBJ/FDR/HST and anyone who ever worked for them all worthless?
Harry S. Truman helped get Medicare and I think Bernie has actually spoken positively about Truman, so by your standards, is Bernie evil, too? After all, Truman must be far worse than Gerson since he actually chose to intentionally kill many innocent people so you know that any person who says anything positive about Truman or FDR should never be believed. Fleas spread quickly and they’re very hard to combat.
Unfortunately, wars are always terrible and yet standing by and watching innocent civilians killed by their own leaders and doing nothing doesn’t always make you morally superior to Harry S. Truman.
I guess if you’re making the argument that ending World War II was as needless as starting the Iraq War, there’s not much I can say to that….
BTW, you aren’t really saying you think Iraq was about not “standing by and watching innocent civilians killed by their own leaders” do you? You do know better than that, right? Even the official justification for war had nothing to do with that – it was about the (false) WMD. Were you too young to remember all this, or have you just fallen asleep?
One hears this same sort of nonsense with regard to Hitler. Yes, he flirted with vegetarianism. Yes, he once wrote that he would like to work to promote vegetarianism in German once it had won the war. Does this mean that vegetarianism is wrong? Obviously, a totally vile person can have some ideas and beliefs that are not totally vile. Hitler was also kind to dogs and to little Aryan children. But he was a monster. Truman used the bomb not once but twice. And on civilian targets. And this after he had continued a policy of carpet bombing cities of the enemy–of total war from the air. Why twice? Well, it’s not scientific if it’s not replicated. Aie yie yie. Truman was a war criminal.
I guess if you are making the argument that the lives of Iraqis do not have the same value as the lives of people in Europe under Hitler, I can see your point.
So “ending” World War II was worth dropping atomic bombs on two cities of civilians?
Got it. Glad there are people like you who feel confident to judge and know the future.
Would it shock you to know that there were actually some intelligent Iraqi citizens who actually thought that starting the war to remove Saddam Hussein would be a good idea that might be a good thing for the country? Too bad they did not have the foresight you do to know exactly what actions would end up having blowbacks and which ones would not.
I remember when some progressives and conservatives attacked George HW Bush for leaving Saddam in place and allowing his evil reign to continue when there seemed to be an opportunity to remove him during the first Iraq War. Without much death. What an easy way to to help millions of Iraqis by removing their terrible awful leader.
Bob – I think perhaps you’re misunderstanding my point. I’m not trying to say that Trump has done some good things, therefore he’s not all bad. I think I’ve been quite consistent on these threads that Trump is indeed bad.
My point is simply that his motivation is not racial. I don’t know how many different ways I can explain this (which is why I’m not a teacher). Trump doesn’t say and do racist things because he hates black people. He says and does such things because doing so gives him power. I suppose in the end it doesn’t matter because the result is the same. But he’s reacting to external circumstances, not internal convictions (of which he has none). If denigrating whites would gain him power, he’d do it.
Perhaps you would argue that all those white Southern governors and senators were not racist, they just wanted power.
Disparaging people of color to gain power is racist.
Trump does and says racist things because he looks down on anyone who is not like him. He is a white supremacist. He is a white nationalist.
Oy vey, NYCPSP, it’s hard to argue with someone with such little grasp of logic. The fact is, we killed a lot more Iraqi civilians than we did Japanese civilians. There’s also the fact that World War II was already in progress and dropping the bombs was seen as the best way to end it with less loss of life. That’s certainly a debatable proposition, but that is a far cry from starting a war based on knowingly false “intelligence”. The Iraq War never had to happen. I was just a schlub with an internet connection and I knew it at the time (and history has proven me correct). The fact that our leaders (the Bush administration) bumbled in anyway and caused such extensive devastation to a country that posed us no threat is criminal.
BTW, if we go to war to save people from their evil leaders, when do you think we should invade Myanmar?
Not to get mired in details (he said as he did just that), but what’s the source for the statement that the “a lot more civilians” were killed by the U.S. in the Iraq War than in the bombings in Japan in WWII?
A recent story in The Japan Times gives the number of Japanese civilian deaths due to the American air raids at 400,000, not including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But as in Iraq, these numbers are not solid because in both cases, long-term radiation poisoning continued to add to the total of casualties. The numbers of Iraqi civilian deaths as a direct result of the war itself as reported by a number of groups is much lower. However, this doesn’t include Iraqi civilian deaths that can be attributed to stuff like sanctions.
Regarding the dropping of the A-bombs in WWII. Of course it was a horror but the Japanese did attack us first and bring us into the war. The Japanese committed all sorts of atrocities and war crimes in China, Korea, the Philippines and the rest of Asia. They fought to the bitter end, the military was not ready to surrender. The battle of Okinawa happened in April-June of 1945. The Japanese did not surrender, they fought to the last man and some civilians even committed suicide rather than surrender to the US. From wikipedia: The battle was one of the bloodiest in the Pacific, with approximately 160,000 casualties on both sides: at least 75,000 Allied and 84,166–117,000 Japanese, including drafted Okinawans wearing Japanese uniforms. 149,425 Okinawans were killed, committed suicide or went missing, a significant proportion of the estimated pre-war 300,000 local population. US Personnel: US soldiers: 14,009 dead to 20,195 dead; 12,520 killed in action; 38,000 wounded to 55,162 wounded. The Japanese did not surrender even after losing in Okinawa.
The bombs were dropped because the Japanese did not surrender after the first bomb or they wanted to surrender on their own terms, not ours. There was a division in the Japanese government but the military was not for surrender. The bombs did save American lives because we did not have to invade Japan and fight from street to street or house to house. We carpet bombed and fire bombed Japanese cities and yet the Japanese did not surrender. At the time, the American troops were thankful that the bombs were dropped. The Koreans and the Chinese were not exactly shedding tears for the Japanese considering all the hideous crimes that the Japanese had committed in those countries.
At the very time when those bombs were dropped, the Japanese were considering terms for surrender. They knew that they were defeated.
Yes, the Japanese atrocities were horrific. No question about that. A hateful, racist, nationalist ideology drove those. Sound familiar?
Are you saying that what Gerson wrote is a lie because you don’t like that he was a speechwriter for Bush II?
He was quoting a book. Have you read it? Is the book a lie because it was quoted by someone you don’t like?
But setting aside Trump’s racist actions and speech, let’s address just his professed beliefs. Yes, in most cases, Trump has shown himself, in the past, not to be driven by ideology but by a low cunning–a calculation–would this be better for me or not? However, in this case, it’s very clear that we are talking about one of the few bedrock beliefs that the generally amoral Trump does have. As a young man, throughout his life, during his campaign for the presidency, and during his presidency, he has REPEATEDLY put forward what he calls his “race horse theory” of human beings. Some are naturally superior. They are, in Trumpetese, “winners.” And some are naturally inferior. They are “losers.” And he always ties this to “good genes.” People, in the dim lizardy Trump brain, either born with it, or they aren’t. He himself, his daughter Ivanka, and others like them–these are the winners. The rest are losers. They are the ones from the “s**thole” countries, the ones in the “infested” cities. This is Nazi Eugenics for Dummies of the for ultra-dummies variety. I’m not going to list here the many, many times he has espoused this, which is the fundamental tenet of racism. A Google search will deliver up to you hundreds of examples.
But that’s not all. The other fundamental tenet of a certain type of racist–the identitarian variety–ties hatred not only to race but to nationality: your nation is superior or best or exceptional and to be defended against any encroachment by foreign elements. And thus we get Trump’s oft-repeated ultranationalism–the same sort of thing that was preached by the fascists in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan–and his immigration policies.
So, you are wrong on this one, Dienne. Trump does in fact hold fundamental racist beliefs.
I have a response to the question of Trump’s beliefs about race, but it is in moderation.
My opinion: Unless or until Trump starts a pointless war, Bush is the worst president of the 21st century so far. Talk about a race to the bottom!
Disagree, LCT.
GWB did not wipe out Environmental Protection. Did not try to eliminate civil rights protections. Did not try to destroy NATO. Did not oppose election security. Did not use racism to stir up Deplorables. Did not insult our allies. Did not ridicule his political enemies. Did not politicize the FBI and CIA. Did not demonize Latinos.
Trump has been satisfying his patron, Putin, by waging a war of division here at home.
They’re not that different. They both do terrible things to the English language.
Christine, both parties have been waging a war of divide and conquer, in ways that are both different and that overlap.
Neither overclass within either party would prefer bloodshed, so divide and conquer, based on what we perceive to be core identity in ourselves (race, class, citizenship, ethnicity, SES, gender, etc.) has been the master and fail safe method.
And it has worked brilliantly, Putin or no Putin.
“Both parties…?”
The Democrats are not trying to divide and conquer. That is ridiculous. The Democrats – unlike the Republicans – have never demanded fealty to party the way the Republicans have and there are clearly differences among Democrats. There are very progressive Dems who are pro-charter and very conservative Dems who stand up for public schools and stand up to the privatization movement. There are Dems who are rabidly pro-union and also anti-abortion, and those who are corporate and pro-choice.
I’m sorry, but it is beyond time for people who stop normalizing what is not normal about Trump and the Republican party. They would prefer this country become a fascist dictatorship than give up power and the Democrats would not. Throwing them both into the same bucket is basically normalizing all that is truly bad about the Republicans and trying to convince voters that it is totally normal and we should just accept it. It isn’t. And while you may think people will rebel, what you see instead is the white racists being empowered and embracing Trump with all their heart and wanting to do anything to keep him in power. Sound familiar?
Lots of people claimed Hitler was just another corrupt politician until he wasn’t. We look at them and say “how could they not see what Hitler was doing and saying?” Now we know who they are — the people who keep insisting that Trump is not so bad, just another politician no different than the Democrats have always been.
Racism and be-out-for-your-selfism have been core to Republican election strategy since Barry Goldwater. It is the magic combination that enables inequity that targets some more than others, undermines most of us, and protects the wealth, power, and privilege of the few. Trump is its apotheosis that has laid the strategy bare for all to see.
Agree with Camins
At Alternet, “Hitler’s Rise Was Enabled by Conservative and Centrist Politicians.” The same playbook we see today is described including
the right wing speech at universities by groups like Turning Point U.S.A.
Concentrated wealth has made the rich desperate. When middle class demand evaporated it eliminated profit opportunity. The result- Waltons and DeVos squander hundreds of millions on Theranos hoping to make a buck. Zuck and Gates cannibalize the children of labor with their digital school schemes. Arnold attempts to take pensions. Goldman Sachs creates SIB’s to take tax money intended for the vulnerable. And, the Sacklers rely on drug addiction.
Edwin Black’s The War against the Weak does a great job of reviewing Nazism and Eugenics in the United States before the war. Hitler held up the US, at the time, as an example to the world of what he considered to be model racial policy. At one point, the Eugenics Records Office on Long Island, which received support from the US government and from a lot of private philanthropists, recommended that the lowest10 percent of the US population, by intelligence, be “euthanized” to improve the country’s genetic stock. The US passed insanely racist immigration policies. Lynching was commonplace. The freaking KKK marched down Pennsylvania Avenue. Presidents were members of the KKK. American banks loaned money to Hitler. American companies assisted him in numerous ways to build his war machine and to perpetrate the Holocaust. Evil. It can happen here. It has happened here.
But here’s the thing: We fought a war in the middle of the last century against racist nationalism. We must NEVER FORGET that.
A history lesson I’d thank you for if it wasn’t so appalling.
Having grown up in Houston and frequently visited relatives in Alabama and Georgia, I was well aware of the deeply ingrained brutality of racism. During the 1960s and 1970s, I often wondered where those horrible white racists went. Now I know. They didn’t disappear. They re-established themselves in the Republican Party.
The racist exodus from the Democratic Party to the GOP started in 1964 but didn’t finish until Reagan was president.
“The night that Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, his special assistant Bill Moyers was surprised to find the president looking melancholy in his bedroom. Moyers later wrote that when he asked what was wrong, Johnson replied, ‘I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come.’
“It may seem a crude remark to make after such a momentous occasion, but it was also an accurate prediction.
“To understand some of the reasons the South went from a largely Democratic region to a primarily Republican area today, just follow the decades of debate over racial issues in the United States. …
“The change wasn’t total or immediate. During the late 1960s and early ‘70s, white Southerners were still transitioning away from the Democratic party (newly enfranchised black Southerners voted and continue to vote Democratic). …
“By the time Ronald Reagan became president in 1980, the Republican party’s hold on white Southerners was firm. Today, the Republican party remains the party of the South. It’s an ironic outcome considering that a century ago, white Southerners would’ve never considered voting for the party of Lincoln.”
https://www.history.com/news/how-the-party-of-lincoln-won-over-the-once-democratic-south
A Koch-funded organization founded by Paul Weyrich (a conservative Catholic and architect of the religious right) is the subject of a Center for Media and Democracy headline, “ALEC Fails to Denounce…Racist Views of its Leaders and Members”.
The Guardian wrote about ALEC’s Washington state chair in April, “Republican lawmaker aided group training young men in Biblical warfare”.
Recent articles about the slide screw-up (Presidential seal) at Trump’s speech for Turning Point U.S.A. omitted the source of funding for Turning Point- Foster Freiss, a supporter of conservative, evangelical Christian causes.
Oh, it goes on and on. American companies supplied the Nazis with the machines that they used to keep meticulous records of people’s ethnicity and political affiliations and of the numbers exterminated in the camps and by other means. An American bank president organized Nazi bunds in the US before the war and loaned Hitler the money he needed to build his industrial and war machine. Henry Ford published an anti-Semitic newspaper and was awarded by Hitler with German’s highest civilian honor. 26 US states passed mandatory sterilization laws, and on the weekends, in Virginia, police would ride through the hills and grab hillbillies at random and take them for sterilization. All in Black’s superb book. And there are many other books about this period.
“He can say that he’s not a racist, and I agree with him, okay?” Scaramucci told the magazine. “And let me explain to you why he’s not a racist, ’cause this is very important. He’s actually worse than a racist. He is so narcissistic, he doesn’t see people as people. He sees them as objects in his field of vision.”…..
I happen to believe that one can still be a racist and be narcissistic as well, but the Mooch is on to something. He was also quoted somewhere else saying that Trump either sees you as a road block or a stepping stone to what he wants. This man is turning into a raving lunatic on the public stage and no one cares enough to take away his access to the Big Red Button of Nuclear Destruction? Everyone should be afraid……even other racists. I keep trying to click my heels 3 times and repeat “There’s no place like home” to wake up from this nightmare.
Diane Every expression of “white supremacy” (as with that hanging and burning and more recently as in Charlottesville) is a direct expression of what is exactly its opposite: arrogance, ignorance, and hate are far from anything resembling “supreme” or “supremacy.”
Unfortunately for us all, however, and regardless of what group, family, or tribe we belong to, history shows that carrying out such horrors is an equal-opportunity occurrence–it’s a HUMAN possibility, not reserved to the fearful, arrogant, jealous, and stupid white folks among us.
Nevertheless, in our time, racism, and its particular kind of hypocrisy, is definitely on Trump and on his blind and fearful followers. How can someone do that and claim supremacy? CBK
BTW, if you define a racist as anyone who says/does racist things, then Trump being a racist is unfalsifiable. But racism generally has more to do with attitudes – does the person hold negative attitudes towards other races? Does s/he believe in the inferiority of other races? By that standard, I really don’t think Trump is.
As Lisa quoted above: “He’s actually worse than a racist. He is so narcissistic, he doesn’t see people as people. He sees them as objects in his field of vision.” Trump doesn’t see anyone or anything other than himself and what advantages him. He personally doesn’t care whether someone is black or white or purple polka-dotted. He cares only how useful someone is. Does he think blacks, etc. are inferior? Well, technically, but then, The Donald thinks everyone is inferior. (Actually, what he really thinks is that he is inferior, which is why his whole life is dedicated to “proving” how wonderful he is as a way to compensate. That’s what narcissism is, but that’s a discussion for a different time.)
Does he consort with racists? Of course. Have his actions had racist effects? Undeniably. So if you want to define him as a racist by those standards, then I guess that’s not debatable. But does Trump personally have anything against blacks, etc.? No, because he’s too self-centered and power hungry to notice or care. If he woke up tomorrow in a world in which blacks held power, he would happily denigrate whites or whoever he needed to in order to rise in power. He’s an equal opportunity hater – whatever will get him noticed and ahead.
“if you define a racist as anyone who says/does racist things..”
Yes, I believe if you ask most people affected by racism — not privileged white people, but most African-Americans — they would probably say that someone who says/does racist things is a racist. Anyone who “defines” someone who does those thing as anything but a “racist” is very likely racist themselves.
That racist can ALSO be selfish, power hungry, and many other evil things. But he is also racist. Period. I truly do not understand people who need to find some kind of nuance to Trump’s racism when he is a racist, period.
So you’re saying that if Trump woke up in some alternate world where blacks hold power, he would continue to denigrate blacks, not whites?
It’s not about race, it’s about power. It’s just that in this country, white = power.
Trump is white and he would never denigrate himself, so what you are writing makes no sense whatsoever.
Are you saying that David Duke, if he woke up in some alternate reality where he was African-American, would continue to say that African-Americans were inferior?
Being racist is about power. Not many people who are not white are saying “whites are far superior to us and should be empowered to rule us.”
Why can’t you just admit that Trump is racist. He is ALSO all the other awful things you mentioned, but that does not mean he is not also racist.
“Are you saying that David Duke, if he woke up in some alternate reality where he was African-American, would continue to say that African-Americans were inferior?”
Well, you twisted my example beyond recognition (typical), but…
I’m saying that if David DuKKKe woke up tomorrow in a world where blacks held power, he would continue to denigrate blacks because he is racist by conviction, not convenience. He doesn’t say and do racist things because he’s trying to gain power (at which he has clearly failed), but because he truly believes racist things.
One final attempt to explain myself and then I need to get other things done.
I think we can all agree that Trump would screw over his own grandmother if there was an advantage in it for him, correct? Does that mean he harbors negative feelings or attitudes toward grandmothers (his own or otherwise)? No, it’s just political, not personal. Now, that probably doesn’t matter to his grandmother who would be just as screwed either way. But it’s factually incorrect to say that Trump is bigoted toward grandmothers.
Trump isn’t necessarily trying to gin up hatred for blacks the way people like David DuKKKe and Matthew Hale do. He’s just taking advantage of what’s already there to boost himself up his ladder. If the circumstances of our country were different, Trump would use different tactics. People like DuKKKe and Hale, however, would continue the same tactics because they are, in fact, trying to preach and spread their hate.
I don’t necessarily know which is worse – someone who has no convictions who will do whatever it takes to get ahead, even if such things are evil, or someone who simply has evil convictions to begin with. But Trump is the former (like many politicians, incidentally, Trump is just more vocal and less able to cover himself with smooth words), not the latter.
Why you don’t understand that Trump is ALSO trying to preach and spread his hatred is beyond my understanding.
As usual, you try to NORMALIZE Trump’s reprehensible actions. “But Trump is the former (like many politicians, incidentally, Trump is just more vocal and less able to cover himself with smooth words), not the latter.”
I truly believe your perspective comes from some white privilege you will never acknowledge and inability to recognize what it is like for people who are not in that privileged position.
White people carry a lot of subtle and sometimes unintentional racism. However, that is very different from the blatant racism that is designed to spread hatred and enable others who have blatant racism to believe that it is okay to express it.
It is like Hitler. There was plenty of anti-Semitism in Germany before Hitler. But there was also some recognition that it was not really acceptable to express it blatantly until Hitler made it all okay again.
That is what happens in the real world. You can watch a movie from just 20 years ago — when we thought we were enlightened — and see all kinds of subtle racism, sexism, and other ugly attitudes towards various groups that were not noticed. But even as people still are racist, the culture is moving in a direction of being less racist and sexist.
Until you have a leader like Trump and empower him. Until you have a leader like Hitler and empower him. In both cases, they were empowered by people who should have known better but instead normalized those actions by insisting that they were no different than the kinds of racism that previous leaders had supposedly been also espousing. Although I think if Trump had said the kinds of things about progressives and locking them up and demonizing progressives as dangerous and enabling the hatred of all progressives you would have recognized how dangerous that feels to other people instead of normalizing it as simply what other politicians have said about progressives.
Imagine that for a minute. Trump starts calling progressives the ugly things that he says about other groups. Progressives becomes synonymous with evil and dangerous with people encouraged to hate them and perhaps act out violently toward progressives.
Would you just normalize it and say it’s no different than the past because other republicans said mean things about progressives, too? Or do you see the difference when it is you who is the object of such outright vile attacks designed to foment hatred and violence?
Remember that old saying, first they came for the socialists….
How many people said “oh they always say mean things about socialists, this is no different, just normal….”
And, ofc, those who have had to deal with him over the years report a lot of racist incidents (e.g., Trump refusing to let a black engineer working for Jessie Pariseau aboard his yacht; Bill Pruit, co-producer of The Apprentice, reporting that Trump used the N word during a discussion of whether a black contestant should be allowed to win). Do you think, Dienne, that in such cases, IQ45 was simply espousing racism to his advantage? Not likely.
So, the question as you have framed it, Dienne, is whether Trump holds racist BELIEFS. And he does. a) He has a long history of espousing a genetically based “race horse” theory of the superiority of some humans, and, in particular, of those not from “s**thole” countries and cities that are “infested.” b) He has a recent history of espousing ultranationalist exceptionalism of the identitarrian variety. These are two fundamental racist tenets–eugenics and ultranationalism. The twin pillars of racism in Nazi Germany and in Imperial Japan and among racists of all stripes today. He doesn’t believe much, but he has made it very clear that he believes these things.
Dienne: racists objectify others as needed in service to their fragile egos, just like narcissists, sociopaths, & those w/borderline personalty disorder. The difference: racism is a product of social conditioning, and subject to change with experience. Trump seems to have been raised w/a garden-variety racism not uncommon in the outer NYC boroughs of his era. That that did not change seems part & parcel of his arrested development [socially he’s juvenile].
No question his pathology is as you’ve described– much broader than simple racism. He’s apparently multiply blessed in this regard 😉
How can we stop the racism when Fox is spreading the ‘news’ that saysTrump is not a racist. BS.
…………………………………………….
Diamond & Silk: Trump is not a racist; he’s a realist
Fox News
Published on Jan 14, 2018
Social media stars weigh in on ‘Fox & Friends.’
FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service dedicated to delivering breaking news as well as political and business news. The number one network in cable, FNC has been the most watched television news channel for more than 15 years and according to a Suffolk University/USA Today poll, is the most trusted television news source in the country. Owned by 21st Century Fox, FNC is available in more than 90 million homes and dominates the cable news landscape, routinely notching the top ten programs in the genre.
Much is reported about Fox and evangelicals. But, no data about Fox and Catholics. Odd that. 60% of white Catholics voted for Trump.
Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society is a conservative Catholic and the founder of the religious right, Paul Weyrich, also.
That’s Zirconia and Rayon, btw.
Trump’s rallies are causing a spike in hate crimes in the counties where rallies are held. Trump delights in pouring gasoline on a fire. Then, he denies he played a role in the violence. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/aug/12/bernie-sanders/did-counties-hosting-trump-rally-2016-see-226-spik/
‘We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
–Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night (a novel about an American who works for the Nazis)
I’m sorry, but there is no difference between a) being a racist and b) saying and doing racist stuff. If you do the latter, you are, by definition, the former.
Saying that this man, with his long, long history of racist action and speech is not a racist is like saying that someone is not a murderer, despite having intentionally murdered people, because he professes to be opposed to murdering. It’s a RIDICULOUS position. Trump is a racist. Racist is as racist does.
often what we say is worse than what we believe or do. When someone hears you and follows, words mean a lot. Think how the rhetoric of Reagan has produced a generation of people who believed what he was saying, even though he himself really did not.
What Reagan was saying about which matters?
Trees cause air pollution?
The Taliban of Afghanistan (his allies, then, against the Russians, are “good, god-fearing people, just like us)?
People collect welfare checks and drive Cadillacs?
Social security and medicare are Socialism? (early in his presidential campaign–his handlers got him to stop saying this outloud).
Tax cuts increase government revenues? (the Laffer Curve).
The drug problem will end if we get tough on drugs and just say no? (at the same time that his CIA was dealing in cocaine to fund its secret wars in Central America).
We can build a shield to completely protect us from nuclear weapons?
What Reagan said to Nixon on the phone about people from Africa and shoes?
He had no knowledge of the arms-for-hostages deal?
That ketchup is a vegetable? (for purposes of school lunch programs)
I was thinking specifically about his consistent noise about the government being the problem instead of the solution to the problem. He constantly talked about freeing up the fearless business owners from the yoke of the government, which he portrayed as a mighty beast to be slain. Meanwhile, he never even submitted a balanced budget for the congress to consider.
What his retoric did was to pave the way for the next generation of voters to listen to the Gingrich revolution.
Well said, Roy
NY Times grappling with his racism.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/08/14/media/new-york-times-criticism/index.html
Ah, I feel a song coming on. . . .
Donnie is our president
Although he did not win
A popular plurality,
And that is just a sin.
Ask me what I think of him.
Oh, where do I begin?
He’s a freaking hero to
The skinhead Aryans.
It ought to be a clue that he
Has such great popularity
With skinhead Aryans.
Wink wink it’s not an accident
That one so twisted and so bent
Should be a freaking hero to
The skinhead Aryans.
It’s getting near that time of year
I never really miss much,
When Trumpty Dumpty will decry
Imagined wars on Christmas..
Our Obergruppenführer’s gone
Back to the heart of Dixie.
But William Barr is now in place
To engineer a fix; he
Will try his best to exorcise
The ghost of Robert Mueller
And so prevent the sure demise
Of Putin’s favorite ruler.
That self-made man
Who built his wealth
With one small loan from Daddy
Of half a billion dollars
To his little Scottish laddie.
Iowa’s Rep. Steve King says out loud what Republicans think. The proof- no black GOP representatives in the House after the announced retirement of one- only eleven GOP women in the House after the announced resignations of two. There are more men in the House named Jim than there are Republican women and black people combined.
CORRECTION: “It is the thing that proved generations of people that claim to be Christians are really vicious hypocrites.”
Willie Horton attacks were not enough to indict the republican party for racist appeals. What does it take?
attacks on the voting rights act, the 1964 civil rights act, the federal judiciary, and the enforcement wing of the EPA did not convince this man we were dealing with a power hungry man. Why did attacks on certain individuals bring out his pen? I guess he sort of explained his evolution of thought. He should have crawled out of the lower branches sooner, maybe during the election, and voted for Hillary.
The talk of an upcoming recession is all a huge plot put forth by the evil Democrats.
………………………………………..
During the broadcast of his eponymous show on Wednesday, conservative talk radio giant and Trump ally Rush Limbaugh claimed that fears of an upcoming recession were largely the creation of a Trump-loathing media in order to help the Democratic Party in the upcoming election.
“It’s really, really important that you not let all of this Drive-By Media, fake economic news, talk you into believing that we are on the verge of another gigantic recession or maybe depression,” he exclaimed in a segment that was later replayed on “straight news” Fox News TV show Fox News @ Night on Wednesday evening. “And keep in mind why all of this is being said: There is a presidential election in 15 months and the people behind this hate Donald Trump.”
Despite the misconception, older people didn’t help Trump get elected by very much. Only a little over half voted for him. It’s the religious (Jewish people excluded- they voted overwhelmingly Democratic) who elected Trump. About 60% of traditional protestants, white Catholics, and Mormons voted for Trump. 80+ % of white evangelicals voted for Trump, a man who personifies everything Christ’s teachings oppose.
The Scandinavian countries where the people are happier and live lives more consistent with Christian values are not as “religious” as the U.S. -the irony.
Yeah, I think it’s quite obvious that American expansion, dominance and the accompanying wars are sold at home and then supported through Christian values.
This is why we still have ‘Christians’ who believe in their own superiority and that the United States is better than other countries. Poor whites and those wealthy who hate need someone to look down upon as inferior. Is this why so many ‘Christians’ support racist, black-brown hating Trump?
……………………………….
Except for the Society of Friends, all religious groups in America supported slavery. In the South black people were not usually allowed to attend church services. Those churches that did accept them would segregate them from white worshipers.
One of the main reasons why masters did not want their slaves to become Christians involved the Bible. They feared that slaves might interpret the teachings of Jesus Christ as being in favour of equality. This was one of the main reasons why most plantation owners did what they could to stop their slaves from learning to read.
Slaves were also forbidden from continuing with African religious rituals. Drums were also banned as overseers worried that they would be used to send messages. They were particularly concerned that they would be used to signal a slave uprising.
Black people in the North were much more likely to attend church services. In 1794 Richard Allen founded the first church for black people in Philadelphia. Two years later Peter Williams, a wealthy tobacco merchant who felt unwelcome in the local Methodist Church, established a similar church in New York.
In 1816 a group of churchmen led by Richard Allen formed the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Allen became the church’s first bishop.
“the evil of white supremacy, resulting in dehumanization, inhumanity and murder — is the worst stain, the greatest crime, of U.S. history. It is the thing that nearly broke the nation.”
This is a very powerful reference to the American Civil War and slavery as its cause. Still the worst stain on our nation was the extension of the European form of superiority that was in the mind of those who destroyed people all over the world during the colonial and imperialist periods. Europeans viewed themselves as the natural superior of other peoples throughout the world. Here it led them to turn a blind eye to exploitation of Africans, aboriginal Americans, Chinese, and even celtic transplants from Europe itself. The idea that Europe was inherently more civilized than the Iroquois is another example of racism or ethnocentrism if you prefer.
In their first excursion into Cape Code, Bradford’s pilgrims stole the winter food supplies from an Indian village and then went back and wrote a thanks to God for so amply providing. He gave not a second’s thought to a) the fact that the idiots among him had showed up in New England in the dead of winter without provisions or, tellingly, b) the fact that the Indians in that village would starve.
Cotton Mather, perhaps the most influential minister in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in his day, wrote in his Wonders of the Invisible World a concise version of the general Puritan view: the New World was formerly “the devil’s territory” and inhabited by “savages” under the devil’s influence, and the Puritans were there to cleanse the continent of this diabolism.
In 1637, the colony tried and expelled a thief who, not long after that, tried to cheat some Indians and was killed by them. In response, the colony sent a force to an Indian village in what is now Mystic, Connecticut, surrounded it in the early morning hours, blocked the exists (it was surrounded by a wooden palisade), and set it on fire, killing 700 innocent men, women, children, and babies. This is known as the Mystic Massacre and was described in detail in an account by a participant, John Underhill.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony adopted as its official seal a drawing of an Indian with a banner, like a modern-day cartoon thought bubble, next to the Indian’s mouth reading, “Come over and save us.”
And so it began. . . .
Cape Cod, ofc. Sorry about the typo.
I preferred Cape Code, Bob. Sounded mysterious. Now it’s just another wellknown place.
Ah yes!!! LOL. You are sooooo right!
“Still the worst stain on our nation was the extension of the European form of superiority”
Was, Bob? How many still think, US is #1? How many still think, the US needs to dominate the World? How many still think, our way of life needs to spread all over?
Every summer, as I sit outside and have my breakfast in my small hotel in Budapest, I listen to these young missionaires, coming from from all over the US, as they discuss what they are going to do during the day and why they are going to do it. These innocent looking young people in their early twenties are already convinced, their superior ideology and way of life needs to be implanted in other people, for here is no other way to happiness.
You are replying to Roy’s comments. I agree with you. Here, my take on the Mormon missionaries: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/03/18/bobu-and-the-missionaries/
Why is Mormon bashing allowed on this site, Diane? There are a lot of good Mormons, not to mention that Bob’s take on what Mormon missionaries say an d do is riddled with errors. Bob, I thought you were one of the good guys. No more.
TOW, I agree.
No one’s religion should be belittled. Not here.
What is the difference between a cult and a religion?
… The concept of Religion invariably is associated with the main religions which have been in existence for 100s or 1000s of years. The main religions are:
Within these religions are many subdivisions of different religious branches, e.g. within Christianity, we see, the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox and the various Protestant churches.
Cult
The term cult is hard to define. There was a time when ‘cult’ was not a pejorative term but referred to a certain branch of religious devotion. For example, the Catholic church would allow the worship of a particular cult (of a certain saint) e.t.c
However, during the twentieth century, the term cult has become laden with negative and pejorative connotations. These negative associations can include ideas of ‘brainwashing’, conversion and abuse. … ”
https://www.biographyonline.net/spiritual/articles/difference-religion-cult.html
One way to identify a cult: “Different teaching to established religions”.
Established religions listed above:
Hinduism
Buddhism
Christianity
Islam
Sikhism
Taoism
Lloyd Lofthouse Judaism? CBK
I copied and pasted without a lot of reading what was there.
Threatened: My sincere apologies. I disagree with the Mormons on historical matters, but in general, I have really, really loved the Mormons I’ve met. These folks have uniformly been kind and decent and loving and generous, and I’ve noticed that when someone in the church falls on hard times, the church community helps them back on their feet. And, with regard to theological matters–in particular, in regard to each person’s essential divinity–I think that they more truly represent the actual teaching of Christ than mainline Christian churches typically do. My parents converted to the Mormon church. I did not. But I have a LOT of respect for the Mormons, though I have been horrified, in the past, by the church’s work in opposition to gay rights. Sorry that my little satirical piece did not reflect my high opinion of Mormons generally. When these young men come to my door, I always invite them in because I trust them and have experience of what good, earnest, decent people they are. Again, my apologies.
Again threatened, I am very sorry. BTW, I lived in Massachusetts when Romney was governor, and I met him, once, when he came to speak to my Rotary Club. I did not always agree with his policies and positions, but I was convinced that he was a decent man–someone who genuinely cared for others–and the same sort of decency that I saw in him I have seen in a great many Mormons I’ve met through the years. Good, caring people.
Thank you, Bob. I appreciate the apology. I would just ask ALL people on this site, who sometimes bash members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (which is the preferred appellation of Mormons) to stop. If you wouldn’t bash Jews, Muslims, Catholics, etc., then don’t do it to my faith tradition, which has about 16 million members world wide.
Again, thank you for the apology.
I apologize too, TOW.
Every religion has magic, myths, and mysteries.
My religion is no better or worse than you.
Jabba the Trump: Totally flaky is only good in pie crusts.
If the Repugnicans had any sense (they don’t), they would find any number of readily available pretexts to get Trumpty Dumpty off his wall before the coming elections, which are shaping up to be an utter debacle for them because Agent Orange a) has very low numbers; b) is losing the very people who crossed over to vote for him last time; c) is getting battier and crazier and more dangerous by the day (Hey, guys, let’s kill all the endangered creatures and buy Greenland and as I told the Prince of Whales, climate change is weather, OK?); d) is showing strong evidence of mental illness and senile dementia; e) is daily supplying hilariously outrageous fodder for anti-Trump campaign commercials (do go watch those YouTube Drunk Neighbor Trump videos; they use only Trump’s own language and are a scream).
Perhaps the Repugnican National Limbo Party (how low, how low, how low can we go) will try to avoid holding any debates between IQ45 and the Democratic nominee, but if such debates are held, these will be complete disasters for the Repugnicans–an abject lesson to the entire country that Jabba the Trump leaves only slime behind him, and his party is quite willing to splash about in it and call it chicken soup for the soul. Imagine ANY of the younger Democratic candidates in a debate with Trump: Trump v Harris? Trump v Buttigieg? Trump v Yang? Trump v Castro? A mop will be needed, each evening, to wipe the orange mess off the stage. Oh, it will be high comedy, but not of the kind the Repugnicans want.
So, I hope very much that they will stay the course. This is going to be pretty darned hilarious. Just deserts and all.
Any sane Repugnican would be screaming for impeachment. But “sane Repugnican” is beginning to sound like an oxymoron.
6-second television spot:
Trump 2020
20 for obstruction of justice, 20 for money laundering for Russian mobsters
Trump 2020
20 for sexual assault, 20 for conspiracy to commit kidnapping
Trump 2020
20 for misappropriation of charitable funds, and 20 for violation of the emoluments clauses of the Constitution
There are people in the world who have no empathy–no concern for the feelings or experiences of others. Such people are very sick and very dangerous, and I wish they were more rare than they are. I’ve met quite a few of these in my time. Some–many, unfortunately–are in positions of authority because the same childhood issues that made them have no feelings for others made them crave having power, for they were once powerless, so they sought out such jobs–as school administrators, managers, police officers, corrections guards, politicians, some sorts of lawyers. Some of the worst of these are business owners because they cannot work for anyone else. They cannot be in any less powerful position.
The longest neurons in the human brain are spindle neurons that connect planning centers in the cortex to emotional centers in the midbrain. Abused children disconnect the forebrain from the emotional centers. It’s a matter of withdrawal from something painful. Neural pathways that are not used wither and die. Psychopaths have been shown to have fewer spindle neurons than normal people do. Their plans are not checked by their emotions–by disgust or horror, for example, at a possible negative consequence for another person. These are damaged people, but the damage is not visible on the surface.
Here’s the thing: people capable of empathy don’t understand those who are not, and vice versa. They are very different types of human being, but they look, superficially, the same. It doesn’t take long, however, if you know what you are looking for, to see which a given person is. BTW, most psychopaths know enough to put on a show of not being dead to others’ emotions. Empathetic people are often find themselves duped because they simply cannot imagine and find it hard to envision this emotional deadness that psychopaths have. A person like Donald Trump simply cannot imagine what a migrant mother and child experiences, and they don’t care about this, or about any other, really, at all. Not in the least bit. NB: All people justify themselves to themselves. The typical psychopathic justification is that they are just realists. The world is tribal and adversarial, and they see this, and those fools out there–those snowflakes–just don’t.
cx: and he or she doesn’t care about this. Ofc
“There are people in the world who have no empathy–no concern for the feelings or experiences of others. ”
I think the real problem is that empathy can be suppressed in all of us. That’s the lesson of wars especially WWII.
I suspect, Mate, that this is yet another problem, but you are certainly right about this. I think, for example, of the truly disturbing story that Elie Wiesel tells of taking the bread belonging to his father. One of the saddest and most terrible I have ever read.
You often make these insightful comments about such matters, Mate. Do you have personal experience of this? Also, are you recovering well from your heart attack? And I wanted to thank you for all the profound insights you leave on this blog. Always, from you, something deep and interesting to think about.
Well, I have Jewish background, went to see Auschwitz last year, plus I grew up in the Soviet block, was a paid athlete during that time. I can give you more in email. My email address can be found at Univ of Memphis’ website.
Luckily, I did n’t have a heart attack, “only” a heart surgery. People kept telling me that I recover well, but then I saw a video of Mick Jagger, who had his heart surgery exactly at the time when I did but he was dancing one month after the surgery while I still had to cross the Atlantic with only a small 4 lbs suitcase 6 weeks after the surgery.
I do feel better now than before the surgery, thanks, Bob. Only this July’s heat was hard—apparently it was the hottest on record both in the US and in Europe.
OK, he didn’t have an open heart surgery, he still is fantastic! 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sycUDWA-_I
Yes, George W. Bush was a terrible president. He and his cronies – including Supreme Court conservatives – stole the 200 presidential election. And in 2004, they engaged in massive voter suppression. W ignored dire warnings of imminent terrorist attacks because he and his administration were focused on supply-side tax cuts that ballooned the deficits and debt. After 9/11, the Bushies engaged in a cover-up of their negligence, and then started a war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, and refused to pay for it. Oh yeah…they also broke the economy.
Michael Gerson was part of all that. That’s to his everlasting discredit. Why The Post chose to hire him is beyond me. But then, hey, Condoleezza Rice has been “rehabilitated” too, hasn’t she? And she was very much a part of allowing 9/11 to happen, and in trying to sweep it all under the rug. The entirety of the Bush administration was despicableness.
So, yeah, Bush was bad. Trump is likely worse. He hasn’t (yet) started a war, nor has he (yet) broken the economy. But he did – knowingly – take lots of Russian help to “win” election. And he has told more than 12,000 lies while in office. And he brokered another supply-side tax cut that is piling up deficits and debt. And he has incited violence, including mass shootings. And he is a racist. And xenophobe. And misogynist.
Michael Gerson is right about that. Trump is a racist, and the Republican party — which once played the “Southern Strategy” race card a bit covertly — has openly morphed into the party of white nationalism.
It bears repeating: Trump and the Republican party are clear and present dangers to the Constitution and to the Republic.
True all of that.
But Trump is already worse because he is openly, brazenly, destroying the executive branch and stuffing the federal courts with rightwing ideologues.
“When the president of the United States plays with that fire or takes that beast out for a walk, it is not just another political event, not just a normal day in campaign 2020.”
The beast is in all of us, all humans, and it is waiting to be awakened. Anybody who is willing to awaken it in himself and in others needs to have his first amendment privileges taken away and needs to be treated.
Mate,
Humans can be beastly, but do not say All of us, because there are many examples in history of those who did not sit quietly and did not cheer on the monsters in charge.
My personal favorites: the young people in the White Rose Society inside Germany. Their Resistance was futile, and they knew they would die if they were caught. And they were caught and they died.
Every regime, no matter how powerful, has internal resistance. Proof that the possibility to oppose wrong exists, as does courage, even in the face of impossible odds.
Donald Trump: Those guys weren’t winners. I like winners.
Trump went bankrupt four times.
I like guys who never went bankrupt.
They are losers.
Not when they have Russian mobsters to bail them out, evidently
I have read that Trump went bankrupt six times.
“6 Corporate Bankruptcies
“Trump has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy for his companies six times. Three of the casino bankruptcies came during the recession of the early 1990s and the Gulf War, both of which contributed to hard times in Atlantic City, New Jersey’s gambling facilities. He also entered a Manhattan hotel and two casino holding companies into bankruptcy.
“Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows companies to restructure or wipe away much of their debt to other companies, creditors, and shareholders while remaining in business but under the supervision of a bankruptcy court. Chapter 11 is often called “reorganization” because it allows the business to emerge from the process more efficient and on good terms with its creditors.” …
But “Trump has never filed personal bankruptcy, only corporate bankruptcy related to his casinos in Atlantic City. ‘I have never gone bankrupt,’” Trump said during one of the Presidential debates back in 2016.
https://www.thoughtco.com/donald-trump-business-bankruptcies-4152019
Bankruptcies are one thing and Business Failures are another:
And Rolling Stone Magazine lists “Donald Trump’s 13 Biggest Business Failures” Some of his failures did not end up going through bankruptcy.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/donald-trumps-13-biggest-business-failures-59556/
Then there were all the small business Trump destroyed when he refused to pay them what he agreed to pay.
“How did Donald Trump, a self-serving promoter who lost billions of dollars for his investors, convince the world that he is a financial genius? It wasn’t just by fabricating tales of his success. It was also by bullying and silencing people who could have stopped those deceits — particularly reporters and Wall Street analysts — forcing all but a very few into a conspiracy of silence.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2019/06/14/feature/how-donald-trump-silenced-the-people-who-could-expose-his-business-failures/?noredirect=on
There are many of these stories, of these incredibly heroic people like those in the White Rose movement who stood up to the goons. Extraordinarily moving. One of your regular readers, Diane, Sheila Ressenger, was just at a Never Again rally two days ago in Rhode Island where a corrections guard plowed his truck into the protesters even as nurses among the protesters were trying to treat people who had been tear gassed by the police.
We live in a time when ordinary people are called upon to act as heroes.
Yes. And thank you, Diane, for reminding us, constantly, of that, by post and by example.
I think sacrificing ones own life is the easy scenario. The more difficult one is when you have to sacrifice a family member’s or friend’s in order to do something which you perceive as good.
What Trump doesn’t say about “winning” is that he thinks it is okay to do anything, anything, anything that it takes to win even if that means laying a thousand newborn infants along the white line of a two-lane highway.
Then Trump slides into the seat of the steel-wheeled roller, heavy equipment used to smooth off the surface of a newly repaved road and rolling over all of the infants to reach the winner’s circle.
In fact, if it meant he had to start a nuclear war that ended up killing billions of people to win another one of his scams, Trump would not hesitate to push the button.
Lloyd Lofthouse:
Trump Reportedly Asks Why We Can’t Use Nukes
“Why can’t we use nuclear weapons?”
—Reportedly asking a foreign policy adviser three times during a meeting why the United States couldn’t use its nuclear weapons stockpile, according to MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough
Your metaphors are priceless.
I dunno, Diane. Beasts seem to pop out, under the correct amount of stimulation, out of the most unexpected people. No doubt, some people have greater tolerance than others to withstand stress, bribery, blackmail, torture.
For example, many people (politicians, actors, athletes, scientists, TV anchors) became members of the Hungarian secret police after they were told that their spouses, kids, parents would suffer unless they become agents. The shocking (nowadays somewhat censored) list of names with pictures is exhibited in the House of Terror in Budapest.
No doubt, there are people who died instead of giving in. There are stories about some of these in Auschwitz, for example. Frankly, I am not sure how I would behave under such duress,
There is an example for similar stressful choice in the film The Imitation Game. One member of the team that broke the code of the Enigma had his brother on the British boat they knew the Germans were about the blow up. But the team member was ordered not to notify his brother or the Germans would have found out that the Enigma was broken. I have no idea what the right choice in that situation is. I think both choices could be called beastly by various people.
It is realistic to view American history from what actually happened. We should rise above the idealistic patriotic fluff told in the fifth grade.
……………………………
“What made the cotton economy boom in the United States, and not in all the other far-flung parts of the world with climates and soil suitable to the crop, was our nation’s unflinching willingness to use violence on nonwhite people and to exert its will on seemingly endless supplies of land and labor.
Given the choice between modernity and barbarism, prosperity and poverty, lawfulness and cruelty, democracy and totalitarianism, America chose all of the above.
American Capitalism Is Brutal. You Can Trace That to the Plantation.
Aug. 14, 2019
Slavery helped turn America into a financial colossus. And our economy is still shaped by management practices invented by enslavers and overseers.
…In the United States, the richest 1 percent of Americans own 40 percent of the country’s wealth, while a larger share of working-age people (18-65) live in poverty than in any other nation belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (O.E.C.D.).
Or consider worker rights in different capitalist nations. In Iceland, 90 percent of wage and salaried workers belong to trade unions authorized to fight for living wages and fair working conditions. Thirty-four percent of Italian workers are unionized, as are 26 percent of Canadian workers. Only 10 percent of American wage and salaried workers carry union cards. The O.E.C.D. scores nations along a number of indicators, such as how countries regulate temporary work arrangements. Scores run from 5 (“very strict”) to 1 (“very loose”). Brazil scores 4.1 and Thailand, 3.7, signaling toothy regulations on temp work. Further down the list are Norway (3.4), India (2.5) and Japan (1.3). The United States scored 0.3, tied for second to last place with Malaysia. How easy is it to fire workers? Countries like Indonesia (4.1) and Portugal (3) have strong rules about severance pay and reasons for dismissal. Those rules relax somewhat in places like Denmark (2.1) and Mexico (1.9). They virtually disappear in the United States, ranked dead last out of 71 nations with a score of 0.5…
But recently, historians have pointed persuasively to the gnatty fields of Georgia and Alabama, to the cotton houses and slave auction blocks, as the birthplace of America’s low-road approach to capitalism.
Slavery was undeniably a font of phenomenal wealth. By the eve of the Civil War, the Mississippi Valley was home to more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in the United States. Cotton grown and picked by enslaved workers was the nation’s most valuable export. The combined value of enslaved people exceeded that of all the railroads and factories in the nation. New Orleans boasted a denser concentration of banking capital than New York City. What made the cotton economy boom in the United States, and not in all the other far-flung parts of the world with climates and soil suitable to the crop, was our nation’s unflinching willingness to use violence on nonwhite people and to exert its will on seemingly endless supplies of land and labor. Given the choice between modernity and barbarism, prosperity and poverty, lawfulness and cruelty, democracy and totalitarianism, America chose all of the above….
If the haul came up light, enslaved workers were often whipped. “A short day’s work was always punished,” Ball wrote…
The United States solved its land shortage by expropriating millions of acres from Native Americans, often with military force, acquiring Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Florida. It then sold that land on the cheap — just $1.25 an acre in the early 1830s ($38 in today’s dollars) — to white settlers. Naturally, the first to cash in were the land speculators. Companies operating in Mississippi flipped land, selling it soon after purchase, commonly for double the price…
Today modern technology has facilitated unremitting workplace supervision, particularly in the service sector. Companies have developed software that records workers’ keystrokes and mouse clicks, along with randomly capturing screenshots multiple times a day. Modern-day workers are subjected to a wide variety of surveillance strategies, from drug tests and closed-circuit video monitoring to tracking apps and even devices that sense heat and motion. A 2006 survey found that more than a third of companies with work forces of 1,000 or more had staff members who read through employees’ outbound emails. The technology that accompanies this workplace supervision can make it feel futuristic. But it’s only the technology that’s new. The core impulse behind that technology pervaded plantations, which sought innermost control over the bodies of their enslaved work force.
I recently had a young friend take a telemarketing job for a large cable corporation, for a summer, for some extra cash, prior to her going on to college. She described it to me in great detail over that summer. It was extraordinarily brutal and reminded me of the Gates-funded Duncan department of education study on using various devices, such as retinal monitors and wrist bracelets to monitor galvanic skin response, to gauge, real time, the gritful attention to task of students. I’ve been in many workplaces where employers read employees’ emails, and in many in which the MIS department could commandeer and look at anything on a person’s work computer without that person knowing about it. In one big publishing house I worked for, this MIS system was called the Octopus. The Orwellian types like those scary names. No excuses schools for test prepping the children of Proles into gritul obedience are also extensions of the plantation model.
What a terrific article this is, Carol, thanks for posting it. Here is something profound – relates to thinking I’ve done this year since reading “The Great Trials of ClarenceDarrow” (McRae): “Nearly two average American lifetimes (79 years) have passed since the end of slavery, only two. It is not surprising that we can still feel the looming presence of this institution, which helped turn a poor, fledgling nation into a financial colossus.”
Just two lifetimes. Only 1-1/2 since Darrow’s big trials, when KKK redux caught fire in midwest cities in response to the beginning of the Great Migration. Read that book to recognize how slowly cultural change occurs – much in 1920’s entirely recognizable in our lifetimes [60’s blockbusting & cross-burning, today’s big-tent evangelism w/its vilification of homosexuality, & more].
We tend to recognize how far tech innovation runs ahead of laws & regs. But I think we tend to undervalue how far laws/ regs have run ahead of cultural change– causing regular backlash, a constant pull backwards. Trump represents that. RESIST.
I did my student teaching under a fellow whose grandfather died at Antietam. As a kid, I watched on TV George Wallace stand in front of the door at the Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama. This is not ancient history.
Investing energy in defeating Trump and what he stands for is vital.
Looking at possibilities- Nikki Haley’s candidacy must also fail, assuming she is the Republicans’ alternative to Trump.
Trump thinks he got a man of the year award from Michigan. This award doesn’t exist. Why would any sane person want this Buffoon to speak?
………………………..
Former Michigan Rep. explains possible origin of Trump’s ‘award’: ‘There was no Man of the Year’
The Washington Times – Friday, August 16, 2019
A former Michigan GOP lawmaker said Friday he believes he knows the origins to President Trump’s claim that he won “Michigan Man of the Year,” an award that seemingly doesn’t exist.
Mr. Trump’s claim came as he was praising Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel — former head of Michigan’s GOP — for her help in the 2016 presidential election.
“I used to complain and you know I just — I’d go [to Michigan] and I’d say, ‘They’re stealing your car business,’ ” Mr. Trump said. “I go for years. In fact, five or six years before I even thought about running, for whatever reason they named me man of the year in Michigan. I said, how come? I didn’t even understand it myself, but I was named man of the year. I wasn’t even political. That was years before I did this, but I was always complaining that our car business is being stolen.”…
“There was no Michigan Man of the Year award. There was certainly nothing like that bestowed upon him,” Mr. Trott said.
Four years later, now President Trump was at an automotive roundtable when Mr. Trott took time to thank the president for being at that 2013 dinner.
“I think it’s still the largest Lincoln dinner in our state’s history,” Mr. Trott said.
“And I want to thank you, Dave,” Mr. Trump replied. “It’s true, about five or six years ago I was given the Man of the Year (award) in Michigan. And I made a speech. I didn’t know I’d be doing this. I didn’t know I’d be running for president. I made a speech, and I said, ‘Your car industry is being stolen from you.’ “
“Is that right?” Mr. Trump asked Mr. Trott, who said “great speech” because he said he didn’t feel comfortable correcting the president…
Link: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/aug/16/former-michigan-rep-explains-possible-origin-of-tr/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=email_this&utm_source=email
Media Matters reports that Pat Buchanan will host a new show for PBS airing. Critics label him a Christian nationalist, white supremacist, homophobe, and anti-Semite.
The show reportedly is in development for a Maryland outlet.
That is alarming.
That may be the Walton funding for PBS collecting for its support.
Boo, Buchanan is a far right wing paleo-conservative. Wouldn’t they welcome him with open arms at Fox News. PBS already has Margaret Hoover with her revivified version of Firing Line. Oh sure, William F. Buckley was such a nice guy. The man who admired Franco and Pinochet and expressed white supremacist opinions in the 1950s. Did he ever recant his racist views from the 1950s? Buckley would use his enormous encyclopedic vocabulary to brow beat and intimidate not to enlighten. Margaret Hoover is not as bad as Buchanan but she still does spout most of the tired lame right wing talking points, (though she may be socially more tolerant).
Buckley had a large vocabulary and an affected, patrician dialect, but he was an extraordinarily muddled thinker. It’s amusing to go back and watch those shows. Whenever he had a fairly bright opponent on, Buckley usually got the worst of it but didn’t seem quite to grok this. He would be blown out of the water by a cogent argument and then sneer and quip as though he had won. LOL.
Trump’s playbook says:
never admit you are wrong
never admit you lost money
never admit many of your business ventures were failures
never admit you had sex with a minor
never admit you cheated on your three wives and your mistresses.
never admit you cheated anyone
never admit you work for Russia
never admit you survived by laundering money for any criminal willing to pay your fee
never admit you are stupid
never admit you are ignorant
Always lie … repeatedly.
Always take credit for and brag about things you never accomplished
Grope all the women you want, because you can and threaten them if they say they will report TD.
Then when the victims don’t listen to your threats, make sure to have all their bodies dissolved in potassium hydroxide so there will never be a risk that someone will discover where the bodies are buried because they will never be buried. They will be flushed away after being dissolved.
Can’t say I always enjoyed Buckley, he was too sharp-toothed a debater, but I counted on him back in late ’60’s as the only reasonably articulate ultra-conservative on TV, & I did want to understand their position. I like Margaret Hoover as an interviewer; she seems intelligent & not offensively polemical. But I don’t hear much of her viewpoint other than as gleaned thro pointed questions, which seem to reflect, as you suggest, your average conservative bear.
I suspect that William Buckley would have loathed Trump. Trump is a wild card, not a conservative. He is destroying the conservative movement by painting it racist, anti-immigration, anti-free trade, and ignorant.
Buchanan was a nativist back in the 1980s when the Repugnicans were dominated by neocon, globalist free-trade types. His time has come back again, alas. The current Repugnican Party is truly scary–even scarier than the Neocons were.
Buchanan was on The McLaughlin Group which aired on PBS for many decades. The McLaughlin Group skewed far right wing/libertarian but would always have a couple of liberals on the show such as Eleanor Clift, Clarence Page, James Fallows and Jack Germond. One time Germond and McLaughlin really went at each other with some fury, I had the feeling they may have despised each other. Germond eventually became an ex-panelist. The McLaughlin Group is still on the air in some other venue but minus McLaughlin who is in the great beyond yelling at the void of interstellar space.
PBS aired a debate between two religious leaders about current political division and rhetoric. Trump was not called a racist, only his rhetoric was called “racially charged” and it was said his policies contribute to “systemic racism”.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/show/2-faith-leaders-on-trump-racism-and-toning-down-incendiary-rhetoric
And the Wash Post ran an editorial basically saying don’t waste your time trying to convince DT supporters that he’s a racist because they share the same beliefs.
It’s a tough sell, because DT has systematically (or crazily) eroded our reality checks. And that was part of his platform, not just a disruptor but a speaker of unfiltered truth, an alternative truth, truer than what is given as truth. But reality is catching up to this. The consequences of reality, at least, and maybe the erratic, ridiculous and self-contradictory nature of the alternative (or even the alternative to the initial alternative) given as truth.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/beta.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-waste-energy-proving-trumps-racism-get-him-out-of-the-white-house/2019/08/16/89883596-bf95-11e9-a5c6-1e74f7ec4a93_story.html%3foutputType=amp
DT has systematically eroded our reality checks
Yes. He has normalized a lot of really strange, disgusting, horrific stuff. He’s given permission to a lot of nativists and racists and exploiters to come out of the wood work.
A hellish, seemingly impervious blob of degeneracy.
I think we may have to freeze him and helicopter him past Greenland. See, now even that’s tricky!
The artic is melting. Antartica is melting, too, but that is going to take a lot longer.
That is why it would be better to fly DT to Antartica on a C-130 outfitted to land there. They would have to bore a hole in the deepest known ice and then drop DT’s frozen carcass into that hole. After DT hits bottom, they would fill the borehole and erase any sign that they’d been there. There would be no record and their short term memories would be erased so none of them would know where DT was deposited deep beneath the ice.
“The deepest known ice rests 2,555 meters below sea level, where the ice is over 4 kilometers thick. This shaded relief view of Antarctica emphasizes the irregular shape of the surface.”
Lloyd, this is a beautiful, way too elaborate and expensive burial scenario for such an undeserving fellow.
The ugly, simple way to get rid of DT’s corpse would be to throw it out of a helicopter above that active volcano in Hawaii … right into the bubbling lava.
The Thing from an Alternative World!
Trump’s racism would not have taken hold without the economic deprivation caused by men like the Koch’s and their brother, Bill Gates.
Gates’ profit-taking zeal was at the root of the denigration of minority students in urban schools. Attribution to teacher failure was the facade to hide unbridled taking by the richest 0.1%..
“Trump was not called a racist, only his rhetoric was called “racially charged” and it was said his policies contribute to “systemic racism”.
I like this as a media approach. To most, calling someone a racist comes through as ad hominem . This gets the message across clearly without descending to name-calling.
Got it.
Trump is not a racist but the language he uses is racist.
The gun doesn’t pull the trigger, the person does.
The opioids don’t kill people, only people who take too many opioids kill people.
By the way, now that Trump, the NRA, and the Republicans agree that mental illness is the true cause of mass murders, have you heard anything about new spending to treat people with mental illness?
Trump wanted people with mental illness to be able to purchase guns. Now, killings are done because of mental illness.
Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?
Within his first two months as president, Donald Trump repealed without public display an Obama administration gun regulation that prevented certain individuals with mental health conditions from buying firearms.
I think Trump, the NRA and the former Republican Party that is now the Trumplican Party will use gun control as an excuse to label anyone that does not support Trump as mentally ill so their right to own firearms will be taken away.
If this happens, then the day will come when only Trump’s supporters will be allowed to own firearms of any kind because Trump will have them declared to be the only sane people in the country that he can trust.
Meanwhile, Trump supporters will continue to shoot up public schools, music festivals, theaters, placed of worship that do not worship Trump, food festivals, etc. and Trump will deny that they are his supporters even when their e-mails and twitter accounts and stickers on their motor vehicles clearly reveal they are Trump supporters.
“This gets the message across clearly without descending to name-calling.”
The message that needs to go across is that DT is racist. What if this comes through as ad hominem? There is no need for arguing over this fact, is there?
“Racist” is but one word in a long list of deplorable words including “deplorable” that define and describe Donald Trump. The list is so long, I don’t want to even start. I mean, I only have about three hours left before I plan to go to sleep, and we all need to sleep at last once a day for about 8 hours.
Diane & máté, I have no problem calling Trump a racist all day long, & npr is welcome to report that bethree5 over at the Diane Ravitch blog said so. I don’t expect the media (outside opinion columns) or religious leaders debating on npr to do it. But I’m delighted to hear the Episcopal bishop of Wash DC get right to the point with:
“Rhetoric that has become dangerously racialized… the president’s words have dangerous potential to encourage others to speak and act with condoned violence… not just rhetoric, but actions and policies… There’s a real distinction between calling someone a racist, which is a personal viewpoint v-à-v another person, and acknowledging that Trump’s policies and actions contribute to the systemic racism in our country.”
Richard Land, president of the Southern Evangelical Seminary, proves my point. He can’t even argue the issue of dangerous racialized rhetoric that incites people to violence – he has to falsely claim Episcopals are name-calling. His entire argument is (a) you called Trump a racist & he’s not, (b) you’re trying to say all Trump Evangelical supporters are racists! [BTW, we don’t like his twitter feed either & only support him on his right-to-life policy], & (d) but hey– your letter [faith leaders at Wash Natl Cathedrals “A Response to the President”] IS divisive rhetoric inappropriate to the high stds to which we hold presidents, er I mean religious leaders.
Here is one more goodie from the Trump administration.
……………..
Trump DOJ Urges Supreme Court to Legalize Firing Workers for Being Transgender
Aug. 17, 2019
In an escalation of the Trump administration’s attacks on the LGBTQ community, the Justice Department Friday night filed a brief urging the right-wing Supreme Court to legalize the firing of workers solely for being transgender.
Buzzfeed described the Justice Department’s move, which was widely condemned by rights groups, as one of the Trump administration’s “most aggressive steps yet to legalize anti-transgender discrimination.”…
The Justice Department’s brief on Friday contends the word refers to a person’s “biological sex” and, further, that transgender discrimination isn’t addressed by a 1989 Supreme Court ruling that found Title VII bans sex stereotyping…
https://truthout.org/articles/trump-doj-urges-supreme-court-to-legalize-firing-workers-for-being-transgender/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=mashshare&utm_campaign=mashshare
Outrageous, ofc. He is trying to shore up his evangelical vote. Polls show that his numbers among evangelicals are slipping tremendously.
Here an evangelical has seen through him and written a book. He gives an interview and explains his break from TD and the Dumpified evangelicals.
Among the complaints: TD demands not just personal loyalty, but support and LAUDING of his mistakes. Is he allegedly going even beyond Hitler’s Soldier’s Oath (personal loyalty over the German constitution)?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/596308/
I have a very dear friend who is a Christian theologian. Started her career as a Calvinist missionary. She detests this guy–Mr. “Two Corinthians.”
The Washington Post today has a long essay about Christian Evangelicals’ love affair with Trump. It is a balanced article, with no bias. Shows the great love for Trump by Evangelicals, who see Trump as their champion, regardless of his personal flaws. He is the messenger sent by God to protect them and their values.
Trump is calling Antifa’s an organization of terror. Ted Cruz has proposed a Senate resolution to designate antifa as a domestic terrorist group. Meanwhile, this protest in Portland is being organized by a ‘sometime presenter on the Infowars conspiracy channel’ who is a member of a white nationalist group known as Proud Boys. Police in Portland are saying they don’t have the resources for this event. [Why is Trump once again at his golf resort? That is happening so often that it no longer is news. It WASTES taxpayer money.]
This pure insanity is being sponsored by Trump and Cruz.
………………………
Portland rally: Proud Boys vow to march each month after biggest protest of Trump era
By Jason Wilson, Guardian UK
17 August 19
As Portland prepared for what may be one of the biggest political demonstrations of the US summer, which authorities expected would lead to violence, Donald Trump threw into the mix a characteristically explosive tweet.
“Major consideration is being given to naming ANTIFA an ‘ORGANIZATION OF TERROR’,” the president wrote from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey on Saturday morning. “Portland is being watched very closely. Hopefully the Mayor will be able to properly do his job!”…
The Texas Republican Ted Cruz has proposed a Senate resolution which would designate antifa as a domestic terrorist group. The resolution says Rose City Antifa, a prominent group in Portland, as “explicitly rejects the authority of law enforcement officers in the United States”…
Gibson’s critics have pointed to the presence at times of members of white nationalist groups like Identity Evropa and the PDX Stormers. But above all the events have been characterized by the growing presence of the Proud Boys, a “western chauvinist” group.
The Proud Boys have played a leading role in the organization of Saturday’s event. The main promoter, Joe Biggs, is a Proud Boy, a combat veteran and a sometime presenter on the Infowars conspiracy channel…
In a press conference, Portland Police Bureau (PPB) spokeswoman Lt Tina Jones said it had been assessed that the event was likely to be “beyond the resources” of her department, even though all leave had been cancelled for the day…
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/17/portland-oregon-far-right-rally-proud-boys-antifa?CMP=share_btn_link
Trump wants to get in as much golf as possible before his Presidency ends in disaster and disgrace and he ends in jail.
Wishing him a double bogey on both counts.
I read an account in which Trump pressured a guy to go golfing with him. The fellow says that Trump tee’d his own ball into the weeds and then walked forward and hit the fair ball belonging to the fellow’s preteen son.
Why does it not surprise me that Trump cheats at golf, as he cheats at everything he does?
Racists, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, trump lover with stickers all over their cars/trucks can run over or shoot or threaten to shoot or beat up as many unarmed, peaceful people as they want and Trump does nothing to stop them, … but a group that is anti-racist, anti-neo-Nazi, anti-white supremacist and anti-Trump must be labeled a domestic terrorist group so says Trump and his Trumplican Party formerly known as the Republican Party of Lincoln.
From what I have been told, Antifa is an unorganized group made up of smaller groups that do not coordinate or plan. They are more like one of those pop-up groups. A call goes out to all the groups that have similar beliefs and some of the people on that list might show up to counter real hate groups and racists that support Trump and now make up the majority of the Trumplican Party.
Trump will direct the FBI to bust up Antifa but not to touch the “Proud Boys,” the goons who have nothing to be proud of.
I think Antifa will go underground and probably become better organized to resist Trumpism. If Trump’s FBI goes after Antifa, the same thing will happen that happened in Afghanistan and Iraq. Antifa will end up with many more young recruits eager to get rid of the lunatic tyrant and his racist, hate-filled followers.
Everyone is supposed to bow before the Orange Swamp Monster OR he will blast back. NO criticism is allowed. Whayley has the right to speak what she knows.
………………
Dayton Mayor Needed Extra Security After Trump Attacked Her
…Trump, however, lashed Whaley and Brown, calling them “very dishonest people” for “misrepresenting” his visit. He also tweeted that their press conference was a “fraud.” Some speculated that Trump may have been parroting a perspective he heard on Fox News.
“I turn on the television and there they are saying, ‘Well, I don’t know if it was appropriate for the president to be here. You know, etc., etc. You know, the same old line,’” Trump told reporters after his visit. “They’re very dishonest people and that’s probably why [Brown] got, I think, about zero percent, that he failed as a presidential candidate.”…
Whaley said she was just doing her job when she called for more gun control in the wake of the mass shooting in her city.
“I respected the president and the office of the president, but I strongly want him to do something and the people of Dayton want him to do something, and so it’s my job to say that,” she told the newspaper.
Article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nan-whaley-dayton-ohio-threats_n_5d5a1b25e4b0d8840ff52eb7
I just saw online a new name for the Orange Swamp Monster. I find it to be very accurately descriptive.
Gropenlyindumfuk
I LOVE Borowitz. Remember its satire and he is a comedian. Sounds like a great deal to me.
………………………….
COPENHAGEN (The Borowitz Report)…
…“Denmark would be interested in purchasing the United States in its entirety, with the exception of its government,” the spokesperson added.
A key provision of the purchase offer, the spokesperson said, would be the relocation of Donald Trump to another country “to be determined,” with Russia and North Korea cited as possible destinations…
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/denmark-offers-to-buy-us
Why screw up the lives of those people even more? Here is a perfect spot for DT
I feel sorry for any president of another country who has to listen to Trump rant.
……………………
“I think Jewish people that vote for a Democrat — I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty,” Trump told reporters during an Oval Office meeting with the president of Romania.
Trump’s comments came as he accused Tlaib and Omar of hating Israel and the Jewish people, and he complained that Democrats should also be criticizing them.
Poor Trump. His art of the deal just fell through. What exactly was the US supposed to do with Greenland? I’m sure everyone in Greenland is cheering because now they won’t have to put up with Trump’s visit. [I think we are now living in La-la land.]
……………….
Trump says he’s postponing Denmark trip because prime minister expressed no interest in discussing purchase of Greenland
In a tweet, the president said that while Denmark is “a very special country with incredible people,” he is postponing his scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen based on her statement “that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland.”
The move comes two days after Trump told reporters that owning Greenland “would be nice” for the United States from a strategic perspective. Greenland is a self-governing country that is part of the kingdom of Denmark.
The man is demented. Does he think he is William Seward?
Borowitz is the BEST!! Gee. I wonder who he is talking about? Lack of education, can’t spell one-syllable words, 6 bankruptcies, unqualified, multiple business failures. Oh my goodness. It’s the Orange Swamp Monster!!!
………………………………………………
Unskilled Man Fears He Will Lose Job in Recession
By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
20 August 19
The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, “The Borowitz Report.”
A man with no identifiable skills is deeply worried that a recession could cause him to lose his job, people close to the man have confirmed.
The man, who has barely clung to his job for the past two and a half years, is justified in believing that an economic downturn would result in his unemployment, experts said.
“When the economy is good, it’s possible for someone like him to hold down a job for which he is woefully unqualified,” Harland Dorrinson, a human-resources specialist, said. “But when the economy goes south, look out.”
Dorrinson said that the unskilled man’s résumé, which lists six bankruptcies and multiple business failures, could come under scrutiny in the event of a recession.
“His employers might find themselves asking, ‘How did he get this job in the first place?’ ” Dorrinson said.
Additionally, the man’s near-total lack of education—evidenced by his inability to spell common one-syllable words or to identify the century in which the airplane was invented—could make him vulnerable to termination, the human-resources expert said.
“On the plus side, he enjoys watching television for eight hours a day,” Dorrinson said. “During a recession, he’ll be able to do even more of that.”
My favorite part of this article is the “punishable by up to five years in prison’. How many times is Trump allowed to go against the law and nothing ever happens? I do hope that he lands in prison. The DOJ says a sitting president cannot be indicted. That is not a constitutional law. “Lock him up!”
…………………………………..
Trump Inflating Scottish Golf Resorts’ Value By $165 Million, Per UK Filings
08/20/2019
The president told British authorities the properties are a combined $65 million in the red. His U.S. disclosures say they’re worth at least $100 million.
…His 2018 “public financial disclosure” filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics also claims those two resorts earned him “income” of $23.8 million. His filings with the U.K. Companies House office in Edinburgh for that period showed the resorts had actually lost 4.6 million pounds ― equal to $6.3 million.
His U.S. disclosure statement also fails to mention $199.5 million in loans Trump has made to those resorts: $54.9 million from him personally to Trump International, Scotland in Aberdeenshire; $144.6 million from his trust to Trump Turnberry in Ayrshire.
Knowingly providing false or incomplete information on that form is a violation of the Ethics in Government Act punishable by up to a year in jail. Signing the form attesting to the untrue information constitutes making a false statement, punishable by up to five years in prison….
Article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-scotland-golf-courses-inflating-value_n_5d5c1ccce4b05f62fbd5f559
Maybe there is some hope. How did this ad get on “Fox and Friends”, Trump’s ‘intelligence briefings’ substitute?
……
Republican Group Urges GOP Senators To Stand Up To McConnell In Damning New Ads
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is facing new pressure from his own party for blocking two election security bills. …
Republicans for the Rule of Law, a GOP group highly critical of President Donald Trump, launched a campaign earlier this month demanding a vote on the bills. But McConnell hasn’t relented so now the organization is taking out TV spots in the home states of four key senators: Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).
The ads urge the senators to stand up to McConnell to get a vote on the stalled bills. Republicans for the Rule of Law said the ads will run on “Fox & Friends,” “Meet the Press” and “Fox News Sunday” in each senator’s home state as well as online.
“Don’t let Mitch McConnell stand in your way,” the spots conclude.
Article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/republicans-mitch-mcconnell-election-ads_n_5d5cce2ae4b0d1e11369ce03
They paid for it.
Money was exchanged but the message goes against the Fox manufactured belief that our great leader is always right.
The goodies for the 1% never end.
………
Trump Says He Has Authority to Reduce Capital Gains Taxes
The president said he thought he could bypass Congress to index capital gains to inflation.
WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Tuesday that he was considering giving investors a big tax cut that would primarily benefit the rich, and that he believed he could do it without approval from Congress.
Speaking at the White House, Mr. Trump said that the majority of his economic advisers supported the idea of reducing taxes on profits that investors earn when selling assets like stocks or bonds. This would be done by indexing capital gains to inflation, which the president believes could be accomplished with his executive authority.
“We’ve been talking about indexing for a long time,” Mr. Trump said. “And many people like indexing; it can be done directly by me.”
He added, “I would love to do something on capital gains.”
Economists estimate that such a move would add $100 billion to the national debt. It would also provide the greatest benefit to the top 0.1 percent of taxpayers, according to an analysis by economists at the Penn Wharton Budget Model….
The pea-brained Dotard has spoken. Why not slime the leader of one of our allies for not accepting his stupid idea? Maybe he can hunt for another country that we can purchase. [It has to be one occupied mostly by white people.]
…………………………………
President Trump decision to pick a fight with Denmark has stunned foreign policy experts already accustomed to being surprised by the White House’s unconventional approach to traditional U.S. allies.
Trump on Wednesday branded the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s remarks rejecting his proposal to purchase Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, “nasty” and “inappropriate.”
Good one!
…………………………….
Danish MP: Trump ‘apparently lacks any diplomatic skills whatsoever’ — but Obama can expect a ‘very warm welcome’ in his country
August 21, 2019
President Donald Trump, accusing Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of being “nasty” and disrespectful to the United States after she declined his offer to purchase Greenland, abruptly canceled the visit to Denmark he had planned. But when Michael Aaastrup Jensen, who serves in the Danish Parliament and is a member of Denmark’s Liberal Party, appeared on CNN on Wednesday afternoon, he stressed that Frederiksen has nothing to apologize for and was absolutely right to describe Trump’s offer as “absurd.”…
Asked how damaging Trump’s tirade against Frederiksen and decision to cancel his visit to Denmark would be to U.S./Denmark relations, Jensen told Baldwin, “We’ve had strong ties with the U.S. before President Trump, and we will have strong ties with the U.S. after President Trump leaves office. But let’s be frank here: the whole way that President Trump is behaving is costing the relationship somewhat. I hope it won’t damage it in the future.”
Jensen added, “So what we will try to do, from the Danish side, is try to have good relations with the country of the U.S. as a whole…. But President Trump apparently lacks any diplomatic skills whatsoever, and we have to take that into account.”
The Danish MP, however, said he looks forward to former President Barack Obama’s visit to Denmark in September…
https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/danish-mp-trump-apparently-lacks-any-diplomatic-skills-whatsoever-but-obama-can-expect-a-very-warm-welcome-in-his-country/#.XV6iimTWwjo.gmail
I tweeted an idea to Trump:
Buy North Korea and dismantle its nuclear program, develop its tourist industry.
And:
Buy Iran, for many reasons.
Diane: Fantastic ideas!
I’m sure Trump can work out something with Kim Jong Un. After all, the two have exchanged love letters. It was a union made in heaven.
Speaking about his relationship with the North Korean leader Trump said :’We fell in love.’ He added: ‘No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters.’
I wonder if Melania is jealous.