The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

[Strat]

He looks drunk and he’s continually trying to stop himself from falling forward.

Or his big fat belly and gravity are having words.

Or he’s shitting himself.

[B]

meh.

[McParadigm]

Not sure what more you expected to get from a writer for Medium.

[Chris_H_2]

Not sure what more you expected to get from a writer for Medium.

maybe, every now and then, Large?

[Mickey]

Is he a writer *for* Medium or a writer *on* Medium? There is a difference, if I'm not mistaken.

Also, his Twitter bio: "Trump is the biggest threat to Democracy that the U.S. has ever seen. We need to get him out."

Not a serious person.

[Peeps]

i thought it was speculated that his stance is due to a neurological disorder?

[verb_to_trust]

He has frontotemporal dementia

[verb_to_trust]

Nobody who is MAGA has ever been able to answer these questions:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... nt/612031/

[verb_to_trust]

Stupid Fuck seems really upset that Twitter slapped him with a fact check.

[Simple Torture]

Stupid Fuck seems really upset that Twitter slapped him with a fact check.

It would be something else if Twitter put a fact-check on this second tweet and said, "What the First Amendment actually says about Free Speech is..."

[wease]

If he shuts down Twitter, wouldn’t that be like cutting off his nose to spite his face?

[Mickey]

If he shuts down Twitter I'm voting for him.

[Peeps]

If he shuts down Twitter I'm voting for him.

if i could get his vote for the HOF id vote for him

[McParadigm]

What are the tenets of the modern Republican Party, exactly?

I don’t mean the ones you yourself are inclined to associate with them. I mean the actual, demonstrated belief system. The crucial party platforms that one could reasonably predict would be supported by a majority of voters, and which a Republican politician must at least pretend to adhere to in order to be solvent. The stuff that hasn’t been actively rejected by a man who continues to hold a historic level of favorability with them.

I’m admittedly piggybacking off of some really insightful posts others made in the last day or two about how the party has changed. It might be its own thread topic, except I think we’re too busy with more immediate concerns to have a big enough discussion.

Family values got dropped. Small government is out (though big government, small regulation...the preferred model of corrupted socialism?...seems hot at the moment LOL). Protecting private enterprise from undue government pressure or influence? Nah. Deficit reduction? People like Mitch and Hannity will pretend to care about that when a democrat is in the White House. But it’s the only time they really do.

I’m not sure I see a philosophy there anymore. It’s more important to attack or vilify others than to govern responsibly. Immigrants, liberals, the media, college professors, children speaking out against gun violence or climate change, stores that ask them to wear a mask for 7 minutes....it all seems to center on finding an other to feel superior to or victimized by. Even in the midst of a pandemic the primary filter is “how am I personally being aggrieved by this situation?”

[tragabigzanda]

Ehh...I don’t love that reading of things, McP. A few nitpicks:

1. The “othering” you’re referring to is demonstrated by both parties in roughly equal amounts. It’s just that the a republican brand of othering feels inherently more toxic, because it is.

2. Family values have only been dropped insofar as the party is supportive of a president who doesn’t demonstrate those values in his private life; and of course the whole family separation thing, which is both an actual travesty, and something that many conservatives can swallow because they think the ends justify the means (and shame on them all). But the socially conservative agenda is very much alive and well, as I suspect we’ll see with broad challenges to abortion at the state level.

3. Protecting private enterprise is again alive and well, the difference being that they’re willing to look the other way when Trump’s attacking an enterprise that threatens their agenda. But they would argue that his specific attacks, like this latest against Twitter, are the actions of a man dedicated to upholding 1A.

4. Deficit reduction is a tough one to parse out right now, given the unprecedented pandemic. I agree that before the pandemic, they seemed to be fine with Trump running a massive deficit, but I suspect that every Republican member of Congress is actively taking the temperature on their constituents to see what sort of appetite they have for a deficit vs efforts to shore up the economy.

I’m not saying the hypocrisy of the right isn’t blatantly obvious. It is, and it’s mostly predicated on 1) the othering you’ve mentioned, and 2) the right-wing media messaging on extremely narrow readings of the constitution and the Bible.

But there’s similar behavior on the left. Far-left Dems want a green energy sector, yet they want to create jobs. You’re going to need a pretty detailed plan for that one to move votes.

They want widespread social welfare paid for by big business, but they also want to block any commerce that doesn’t fit their agenda (see WA vs MT/WY over fossil fuel exports from Seattle ports).

They want individualized education opportunities on the per-student level, yet they want free college for all. Holy shit, that is a NOBLE cause but I’ll be damned if I know how it could ever come to pass.

What’s been lost by both parties is not any sort of ideology or vision; those things are always going to evolve with the times. What HAS been lost is any ability to compromise, and while I mostly blame Mitch McConnell for that, there’s enough residual blame to go around.

[tragabigzanda]

TL;DR support your local journalism.

[Mickey]

1. The “othering” you’re referring to is demonstrated by both parties in roughly equal amounts. It’s just that the a republican brand of othering feels inherently more toxic, because it is.

You see how sentence two actually negates or invalidates sentence one, don't you?

[elliseamos]

I think the "both sides" argument loses credibility when one party is staking its entire ability to survive on voter suppression and dark money.

Kinda hard to speak for any portion of a country that has all but left your archaic values behind when voices are so restricted.

[doug rr]

[digster]

McP can speak for himself, of course, but just my two cents...

3. Protecting private enterprise is again alive and well, the difference being that they’re willing to look the other way when Trump’s attacking an enterprise that threatens their agenda. But they would argue that his specific attacks, like this latest against Twitter, are the actions of a man dedicated to upholding 1A.

4. Deficit reduction is a tough one to parse out right now, given the unprecedented pandemic. I agree that before the pandemic, they seemed to be fine with Trump running a massive deficit, but I suspect that every Republican member of Congress is actively taking the temperature on their constituents to see what sort of appetite they have for a deficit vs efforts to shore up the economy.

As you say, this has long been the case since before the pandemic. Sky-high deficits are nothing new with Republican leadership. At multiple points, you say that the Republican Party is just going along with something contrary to core tenets from the past because they're willing to look the other way for Trump. Trump is the most popular Republican politician in the party in recent memory; it doesn't seem like they need much pressure to go along with him.

I’m not saying the hypocrisy of the right isn’t blatantly obvious. It is, and it’s mostly predicated on 1) the othering you’ve mentioned, and 2) the right-wing media messaging on extremely narrow readings of the constitution and the Bible.

But there’s similar behavior on the left. Far-left Dems want a green energy sector, yet they want to create jobs. You’re going to need a pretty detailed plan for that one to move votes.

They want widespread social welfare paid for by big business, but they also want to block any commerce that doesn’t fit their agenda (see WA vs MT/WY over fossil fuel exports from Seattle ports).

They want individualized education opportunities on the per-student level, yet they want free college for all. Holy shit, that is a NOBLE cause but I’ll be damned if I know how it could ever come to pass.

Even if you agree with this reading of these issues, I think the point I (and perhaps McP) was trying to make has little to do with hypocrisy, which is what you're highlighting here. That's not the point; it's more about what's actually driving the Republican Party. If, as you put it, ideology and vision are inherently going to evolve with the times, what has that vision evolved into? And I find it hard to argue that this seems like the prevailing vision at work in today's right wing;

It’s more important to attack or vilify others than to govern responsibly. Immigrants, liberals, the media, college professors, children speaking out against gun violence or climate change, stores that ask them to wear a mask for 7 minutes....it all seems to center on finding an other to feel superior to or victimized by. Even in the midst of a pandemic the primary filter is “how am I personally being aggrieved by this situation?”

Maybe there are Republican politicians that buck this trend; maybe you see some in your own experience. But trends don't stop being trends because there are outliers. I'm not arguing that the Republican Party is the only one engaging in hypocrisy; I'm asking what are the core things that bring Republicans to the dance in the first place.