Eratosphere - Trump Watch

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- - Trump Watch (https://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=27494)

The "queue", to which John refers, is about to become a roll of dishonour. Perhaps Trump should be aware that he jostles in May's list with Erdogan and Modi. Perhaps May should wake up to Trump's blaring "rule" number two - "Buy American" - before she scribbles her signature, with Faustian flourish, to any 'deal'. Perhaps, here, we should all promote a triple volume offer of reprints - Orwell's 1984, Roth's The Plot Against America, and Paul Dehn's Quake, Quake, Quake.

The veteran Viennese refugee journalist, Willi Frischauer, commenting on the notion that there was such an animal as a 'new' Nixon, shortly before Watergate broke, offered the reflection, "The thing that worries me about these politicians, is that they actually mean what they say." Go figure.

As to the evaluation of Trump and the Obama years, the brilliant Guardian journalist Peter Jenkins, writing of the looming re-election of Nixon, set up a comparison, which would transfer well today....
"Barack Obama is a ten times better man than Donald Trump, and let him be remembered when the stains of Trump's presidency have been scrubbed out from the American heritage." Now, it seems, we must all hope that your heritage - and ours - lasts that long.

An optimistic view of Trump is that he's an intensely stupid man who happens to have a severe personality disorder. I happen to think it's much worse than that, but I'll try hard to be an optimist.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner (Post 386889)

Just a quick reminder that Eratosphere's guidelines don't prohibit harsh criticism of either poems or ideas. If you think someone's poem or idea is dreck, you are free to say so (ideally by identifying specific points that will help that person revise).

However, critiques need to stay focused on the poems or ideas, and not wander off into critiques of the personal shortcomings of the people associated with those poems or ideas.

An attack on the weaknesses of your poem or idea is not automatically an attack on you. Please don't interpret it as such. (And if someone does attack you personally, please don't respond in kind--just remind that person of the site guidelines, and bring the conversation back to the poem or idea.)

Now back to our regularly scheduled argument.

Hey Julie. Nice to see you as a moderator. This idea of separating the person from the ideas is about become a much more difficult task so I don't envy your job. Here is the thing: The ugly notions in the hands of thugs like Trump who act quickly and with certainty are actions almost before they are ideas. And defense of them, or allowing the actions taking place to be obscured is a necessary part of that action. So when someone in power moves to split families and deport people in mass simply or to gut the few remaining regulations that are slowing the destruction of the biosphere down the action is inherent in the idea and a refusal to acknowledge the need to resist that idea/movement is to take sides. And if you take sides with deforestation or deportation or you are part of the action. You become a deporter, a misogynist, a racist, what have you, by nature of the necessity of your support/silence/assistance in the spread of propaganda. These aren't disagreements on scansion. This is a critical moment where only clear and uncompromising resistance has any chance of lessening the damage. So forgive me if I lose patience with stupid/violent ideas and suggest that holding them might make one stupid/violent.

What can you deduce from this video?

http://abcvod.abcnews.com/i/abcnews/...3u8?b=500-4500

It was directed by Christopher Guest?

That link didn't work for me, Jim.

Here's an interesting bit of Trump watching I just saw on Twitter:

Trump plans to block visas to anyone from:

Iran
Iraq
Libya
Somalia
Sudan
Syria
Yemen

where apparently he has no business interests, unlike:

in Egypt, Turkey, Saudi.

Here's a map of where his money is. (This, along with his cabinet of billionaires--oh yeah, he's the President of the unheard masses like I'm Napoleon Bonaparte.)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3Czet2W8AEbSWp.jpg

I have just seen him advocate torture in an ABC interview. What more does he have to do to be impeached?

The answer to that, Nigel, is to turn on the people who elected him. About 60 million of them or so, all racists, bigots, homophobes, climate deniers, and those of us who like pork in our hot dogs. And if it somehow happens to come true, (his impeachment) Pence will become president. He doesn't own any companies, he isn't rich, and the religious right (me) will cheer him on. Trump is wresting the country back from socialists and worse. He has my attention. For the better. No one's gonna impeach him over his support of waterboarding. So far, taking the country back from those who would have us living in caves is a good move. Unless one lives in a cave already.

Pence calls his wife "mother." (That's gotta be Christopher Guest.)

That's downright funny, James.