President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

From The Irish Times, so posted here for @YankeeFan's ringing endorsement ...

Fintan O’Toole: Trial runs for fascism are in full flow

Fascism doesn’t arise suddenly in an existing democracy. It is not easy to get people to give up their ideas of freedom and civility. You have to do trial runs that, if they are done well, serve two purposes. They get people used to something they may initially recoil from; and they allow you to refine and calibrate. This is what is happening now and we would be fools not to see it.

One of the basic tools of fascism is the rigging of elections – we’ve seen that trialled in the election of Trump, in the Brexit referendum and (less successfully) in the French presidential elections. Another is the generation of tribal identities, the division of society into mutually exclusive polarities. Fascism does not need a majority – it typically comes to power with about 40 per cent support and then uses control and intimidation to consolidate that power. So it doesn’t matter if most people hate you, as long as your 40 per cent is fanatically committed. That’s been tested out too. And fascism of course needs a propaganda machine so effective that it creates for its followers a universe of “alternative facts” impervious to unwanted realities. Again, the testing for this is very far advanced. ...

And the results are quite satisfactory. There is good news on two fronts. First, Rupert Murdoch is happy with it – his Fox News mouthpieces outdid themselves in barbaric crassness: making animal noises at the mention of a Down syndrome child, describing crying children as actors. They went the whole swinish hog: even the brown babies are liars. Those sobs of anguish are typical of the manipulative behaviour of the strangers coming to infest us – should we not fear a race whose very infants can be so devious? Second, the hardcore fans loved it: 58 per cent of Republicans are in favour of this brutality. Trump’s overall approval ratings are up to 42.5 per cent.

This is greatly encouraging for the pre-fascist agenda. The blooding process has begun within the democratic world. The muscles that the propaganda machines need for defending the indefensible are being toned up. Millions and millions of Europeans and Americans are learning to think the unthinkable. So what if those black people drown in the sea? So what if those brown toddlers are scarred for life? They have already, in their minds, crossed the boundaries of morality. They are, like Macbeth, “yet but young in deed”. But the tests will be refined, the results analysed, the methods perfected, the messages sharpened. And then the deeds can follow.

 

Stuttering John Melendez manages to get President Trump on the phone after prank call | Daily Mail Online

Claimed he was Sen. Bob Menendez.

The audio is included. It certainly sounds like Trump.

 

Lulz to umpteenth degree.

 

How is the most momentous achievement of the Trump presidency working out?

 

Do you think trump knows the difference between amity and enmity?

 

Lots of stock buybacks. But I'm sure that will benefit all those average households who own . . . wait . . . nope. Sorry.

The Richest 10% of Americans Now Own 84% of All Stocks

 

Well if it wasn't for all them damn immigrints taking all the jobs, the other 90% of real Americans could buy more of them stock things.

 

Wonder if Trumpists will call for the Idaho legislature to censure this conservative heroine as swiftly as they called (justifiably) for Maxine Waters' rebuke.

 

Just wait till Texas turns purple in 20 or so years. Candidates won’t be caught dead north of the Red. Texas will be ballgame. Ohio on steroids.