Postby Elle » Fri Jul 22, 2016 8:11 am
I both can and cannot believe that Trump did not walk back his INSANE comments on not defending member states of NATO last night. He is constitutionally incapable of admitting error, so he's not going to want to do that, but I predict that after he is trashed to ribbons over it over the next few weeks, he walks it back in some way, most obviously by saying that people misunderstood his original comments so the blame is on them, not him.
Ivanka was great; she is the best thing going for his campaign, especially among politically-moderate women. She is basically what every PTA mom I encounter is trying to be, both literally and figuratively, so I assume they love her. Granted, it's not clear to me why Trump is committed to any of the things she said, since he never talks about them, and they're all straight-up Democratic talking points. But whatever, she was good.
Trump started off strong but then it just went on and on and on. After about 20-30 minutes he should have spent 10 more to wrap it up, but that's when he took the deep right turn into DOOM and DARKNESS and how completely screwed up the country is. Those of us who believe the grimmer global climate change predictions are already there for a different reason, but I was amazed at how negative about America these folks are. It's not just the slogan (which bugs Chloe because even at 9 years old, watching her first political speeches since 4 years ago, she noticed that the Make America Great phrase implies that it ain't great already!), but the pervasive and dishonest account of how bad everything is both at home and abroad. If anything has been improving the bad, it has been the Obama administration (or, to be fair, the last 8 years of governing, for which he bears partial responsibility), while fought tooth and nail on every point by the Republican Congress. (One wonders what he might have accomplished for the economy without the constant debt ceiling and budget brinkmanship, but whatever.)
It also shocks me that they are chanting to put Hillary in jail. Over emails - but generally just because they hate her. They don't need much excuse! A failure to find any criminal wrongdoing on her part is meaningless when you know in your heart that bitch is guilty, I guess. That is truly unbelievable, and they mean it. I know some of these people and they mean it - her and Obama too. They think they are actually ENEMIES of the state, criminals! The last time I heard anyone on the left calling for such things, it was after Cheney and GWB had actually put up a legal justification for the completely illegal torture methods their administration had intentionally deployed. One that you didn't see people like Romney embracing. Now we have Trump who wants to ramp up the torture regime, without any due process! He sneers at due process! He publicly longs for a time when people could hurt each other (literally he has said this multiple times) without consequence, e.g. putting down protests. He admires tyrants like Putin and Assad and people who crush dissent in their regimes like Erdogan. It is truly unbelievable to me that this is going on and people swallow this and cheer for it and the mainstream media sits back and lets it pass as just another "perspective" or opinion.
There's a really good comment on Trump's speech from David Frum (who at one point would have been considered a conservative and who was GWB's speechwriter and biographer, and now he's probably considered a socialist by that Cleveland crowd). He points out that Trump is speaking to and encouraging a great division among Americans between the "deserving" and "undeserving", which is rather different (and scarier, as a means of motivating people) from all the makers/takers language we've been hearing:
"Trump’s country is divided in a different way: between those who have lost a status they deserved—and those who have gained a status they do not deserve."
Frum then quotes Trump: "I have visited the laid-off factory workers, and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten men and women of our country. People who work hard but no longer have a voice.
I AM YOUR VOICE."
Back to Frum: "Donald Trump’s country is a country in which deserving people feel they have lost even the right to complain about what has happened to them, lest they give offense to some grievance group."
This is a really good point. This is what I hear from the people I know who support Trump: they're pissed off because they feel that good people (like themselves, natch) are losing ground every day in this country, economically and otherwise, and when they try to blame the usual scapegoats for it (Others not like themselves! immigrants! greedy junk-food-eating welfare moms! thugs! Muslims (including Obama)!), some whiny types on the left bray about political correctness and offense. And I'm sure it's a heck of a lot easier for Trump to reach these people by blaming the "rapist" Mexicans he wants to deport than it is to ask why employers are given a free pass for breaking the law by hiring illegal immigrants. It's easier to blame liberals in general than it is to actually do something about the massive, astonishing wealth inequality in this country - i.e. Bernie Sanders' core issue. (IMO Bernie appeals to the same mentality that things are really effed up and we need a radical correction, but minus the hatred for Others-Not-Like-Us and with actual policy proposals that are needed to fix things.)
Trump wants us to trust him personally to fix it all by magic, since he has no actual policy proposals besides things like BUILD A WALL and crazy talk about not supporting NATO. God I hope that sanity prevails in this country, I PRAY that sanity prevails. Because we are pretty damned close to having an outright dictatorship here, right now. My husband is certain that the U.S. Military would not permit Trump to operate as an actual dictator. But I think they would permit a great deal of movement in that direction - we've already seen how much power the state has assumed for itself outside the law, and how easily they've created law to permit it in some areas (e.g. spying on all of us, all the time). Trump would exploit all of that to the fullest and then some - as we know, due process is meaningless. It is truly terrifying.
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