This Is How Democracies Die

[*PhilHos*]

(01-25-2018, 06:54 PM)hollodero Wrote: I'm not just talking diehard supporters though. Of course everyone has some of those. But the amount of Trump loyalty for lack of a better word from other people in power is what's so troubling. What gets tolerated and defended and spun and so on.

Are you young? I only ask, because I've not seen any differenc ein the support Trump gets from other politicians than any of the other presidents before him got (since I've paid attention to politics anyway - about the middle of Clinton's 2nd term).

(01-25-2018, 06:54 PM)hollodero Wrote: Also, while the point often holds merit I do think it doesn't always go both ways equally. Have you ever played the "What if Obama had done it" game. If Obama had dubious and/or ongoing business dealings he's not willing to disclose, a bunch of undeclared foreign agents in his transition team, had silenced a porn star with 100.000 Dollars he had an affair with, had talked about pussygrabbing, shittalked to boy scouts, would defame political opponents, the FBI and journalists on a daily basis, claimed voter fraud and supported a child molester, had a Times list accusing him of lieing a thousand times, a special councel investigation and so on and so on (this always ends up in lists too long, you know the stuff anyway), no way his support were still around the 40% mark. There would be some supporters. There wouldn't be quite that many. And there would be a whole bunch of Democrats being strongly opposed and voicing that, not just a single Flake. - It's just, Obama or Bush or whoever weren't Trump, so it's hard to compare.

You never heard of Bill or Hillary Clinton? 
And the "other side do it more" argument is a HUGE problem. The fact that BOTH sides do it and to a significant degree is a problem. Just because one side is like 10 or 20% more corrupt doesn't make it better for the other side if both sides are hugely (or bigly ) corrupt.

(01-25-2018, 06:54 PM)hollodero Wrote: Now while most of these things are rather embarrassing than troubling for democracy, the constant discrediting of law enforcement and the media and the repeated mentioning of baseless conspiracies against political opponents and the whole authoritarian attitude look more serious. As does the silence and deflection from his party.

All I'm going to say is that while it's true that Trump shouldn't call all news 'Fake', the fact remains that there are a LOT of 'fake news' stories from supposedly reputable news organizations. If news agencies would go back to making sure their sources were vetted, that their claims were based on merit, stopped rushing to be the 'first', and basically went back to being highly ethical, Trump would have no basis to call ANY news fake. Not that that would stop him, I'm sure, but it'd certainly take away from whatever credibility he might have left.