President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Correct. You cannot kick a kid out of school for wearing a MAGA shirt. You can't ask him to change it. This is pretty simple stuff.

 

Maybe he was wondering why a star fantasy football player was in Niger?

 

It seems to me that at least a part of the Dick/Yank argument is that we are accusing Trump of "trolling" the widow. I won't speak for others but that thought never crossed my mind. I assume that he didn't attempt to or know he offended the widow. I believe that he is a lazy person who put in no preparation and thought he could wing it because his IQ is the highest. Of course we all understand that he is a moron (Yank, agree?) and that even one with an actual high IQ would need to prepare for such a daunting task. This would be disturbing in a vacuum but given it occurred following his lie about being the only President to call families it is newsworthy and even more appalling. This seems easy .

 

Impact trumps intent. He lacks the cognitive ability to intentionally do just about anything in conversation outside of aggrandize himself. But he taunted her.

 

W. slaps Trump upside the head. He might have well have titled his speech: "Miss Me Yet?"

Analysis | George W. Bush’s anti-Trump manifesto, annotated

 

This kind of reminds me of when white people got so insistent on the inoffensiveness of the word, "Redskins," a slur that has never and will never be directed at them. White people don't get to make that decision.

Similarly, no one else gets to decide what this Gold Star family should or shouldn't feel disrespected by. Sure, whether that is justified in your eyes depends on the context and the rest of the conversation, but your opinion on it doesn't change what happened.

And, again, it comes down to a simple choice. Who do you believe: The grieving Gold Star family or the serial liar and sociopath?

 

I am a little bit waiting for the day when he totally accidentally mispronounces the nation involved in this incident.

 

I doubt that Trump intended to troll the widow. If she reacted badly to something he said, I don't doubt that he could have taken offense and hit back, saying something snotty. That's classic Trump behavior, and she really wouldn't have had to say anything rude to trigger it.

I strongly suspect that this was ill-prepared Trump half-assing it. He had his staff in his ear telling him that the story was blowing up, that it had been too long and that it was starting to generate bad press. So you get grumpy Trump doing what someone else is telling him he has to, which means that he does it with ill grace on a good day. He says something that she reacts to. He forgets the name of the dead soldier he's calling about. It goes to shit because it really wasn't important to him so he made no effort to prepare, and that lack bit him.

As ever, nothing could possibly be his fault, so he starts hitting out, lying, and looking for someone else to blame.

 

Most of this is just scattershot liberal rage on a computer screen. In a sense, it's actually patronizing to women and minorities, to bring up "white men," because it suggests, at the very least, that white men (who presumably voted for Trump) should ignore being called a white supremacist because...why, exactly? Because they are empty words? Second, it seems to presume that the #MeToo trend is a women + minorities coalition; that is, the target of #MeToo is white men.

Beyond that, I voted for Hilary Clinton. I voted Democratic candidates in other elections, too, where they had no chance of winning, in part because they're forced to genuflect at the altar of the liberal rage indicative your post. I've repeatedly asked my more liberal acquaintances/friends: Which of your priorities are you willing sacrifice to achieve your top priority? And the answer is usually the same: Nothing. To pick one thing over another is personally offensive. They're moral gluttons, really.

Trump's victory should be a loud, ringing bell. So should the fact that three ancient candidates lead a NH poll by a wide margin. Liberals under 50 have lived under the protection of older, Baby Boomer Democrats who delivered elections in the 80s and 90s against stuffy, wear-a-suit-to-a-Fourth-of-July picnic nerds who swooped around Ronald Reagan.

But more than a few of those Democrats voted for Trump. Others voted for Johnson. Others didn't vote at all. Some of it, of course, yes, is a changing world, diversity that makes them uncomfortable, etc. But some of it, too, is a culture that increasingly sees them and their experiences and their thoughts as the enemy. So long as they're going to be seen as the enemy, they might as well be the enemy. So they were.

And it'd be OK if, y'know, there was any kind of political spirit among younger Democrats. But there isn't much. They get fired up for one election every four years, and they can't even win that against the devil himself.

Additionally, there's a presumption that younger Americans are liberal. I think they're libertarian - that is, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro economic freedom, pro charter schools, pro do whatever you want as long as you ask nothing of me - more than they are liberal.

 

CNN short version ...



George W. Bush: Bigotry and white supremacy are 'blasphemy' against the American creed - CNNPolitics

 

We have seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty. At times, it can seem like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together. Argument turns too easily into animosity. Disagreement escalates into dehumanization. Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions – forgetting the image of God we should see in each other.
...
And our young people need positive role models. Bullying and prejudice in our public life sets a national tone, provides permission for cruelty and bigotry, and compromises the moral education of children. The only way to pass along civic values is to first live up to them.

 

Suppose Trump had done everything -- the words, the posture, the tone -- completely by the book. (Note that I'm not saying he actually did.) If this Gold Star family felt disrespected by that, would it be unreasonable to say, "I know you're going through an awful time, but what else would you have the man do?"