CBS says it's OK to "punch a Nazi"

[Dill]

(04-25-2019, 02:51 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: As I said above, Trump is what he is, you can either rationally point out his myriad foibles and questionable, even inept, decisions or you can get down in the mud with him.  Far too many people who claim the moral high ground have done the latter.  The worst offenders have cried Nazi, dictator for life, democracy crumbling, Putin's punk so often and for so long before you stop listening to it.  I've made the "boy who cried wolf" comparison many times since the 2016 election and, if anything, it's gotten worse since then.

Seems to me that rationally pointing out his myriad foibles and inept decisions is kind of important, given his position and immense power over U.S. policy. His inept decisions are not just mistakes, but a consequence of firmly held beliefs not subject to empirical disconfirmation. Driving U.S. foreign policy out of tracks laid down via decades of diplomacy--by someone who knows nothing of that history--amounts to more than a "foible."

But today pointing out very serious Trump "foibles/mistakes" is also dismissed as just Trump hate and sour grapes rather than factual reporting of what he actually does. So people don't seem to agree on where the line is between the two. It certainly serves Trump's interests to keep the line fuzzy--or non-existent.  Hence criticism of any sort becomes fake news and a personal attack on the President.

Certainly a president who, on a world stage, favors Putin's denial of Russian meddling in the U.S. election over the contrary assessment of his own intel services, is working against the U.S. national interest, right? More recently, the president's chief of staff told his Secretary of the Dept. of Homeland Security not to bring up the threat of Russian interference in the upcoming election to Trump because it angered him.  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/us/politics/russia-2020-election-trump.html.  If people keep pointing out how Trump compromises U.S. security regarding the Russia threat, that is because he keeps compromising it.  Because he keeps doing it and people keep pointing it out--is that a good reason to "stop listening"? Is it "crying wolf" if there is a wolf? 

I, for one, do think Trump is a threat to liberal democracy, and this should not be ignored. For a number of reasons (not least of which is the success of the republic so far, which lulls people into complacency) checks on his behavior are not working as well as I would like. So I am definitely the boy who cried "democracy crumbling."

Taking Trump seriously as a threat to liberal democracy does not require imagining that he might take over the country and run it as a dictator.  He could do much serious damage to U.S. institutions before leaving office, not to mention incite and exacerbate insurmountable divisions among voters which insure more gridlock at the federal level and worse. It is further extremely disturbing that his power is maintained by a base impervious to evidence and counterargument but responsive to conspiracy theories. That also bespeaks mass power of an anti-democratic nature. For liberal democracy to work, voters must subscribe to unwritten norms and ideals which prize civil discussion and view rule-of-law as protection of everyone's liberty rather than an obstacle to today's political goals. They must view the free press as an institution acting in their interest, but that is impossible if they equate evidence-based reporting and analysis with political rhetoric because they genuinely see no difference.

[GMDino]

At his rally tonight, Trump says the government is unable to violently attack immigrants, someone in the crowd shouted "Shoot them!"

The crowd & Trump erupt in laughter & cheers. Trump says, "Only in the panhandle can you get away with that statement."pic.twitter.com/SgQd2OH9ti

— jordan (@JordanUhl) May 9, 2019

 

[Dill]

(05-09-2019, 01:46 PM)GMDino Wrote: Trump says the government is unable to violently attack immigrants, someone in the crowd shouted "Shoot them!

Walls Work!  And work even better with armed guards.




Amerika has yet to reach its full potential.