Maybe I should get a seat on the policy platform committee. Hah. What we have to face is that the low-to-no interest regime that characterized the 10 years or so period up to Covid is not coming back in the foreseeable future. That is life so we have to get used to it. People have always adapted and I expect we always will.
Check the headlines, Thomas..inflation rate has slowed significantly. Still, it is true that prices are also significantly higher than they were at the start of 2022. As for spending -- and here I am thinking of infrastructure projects -- it's not what you spend, it's what you get for your money, OR, what happens when you don't spend wisely and in a timely fashion. US infrastructure has suffered decades of under-spending on deferred maintenance, needed upgrades, etc. in my opinion. And the Trump-era tax cuts are a big reason we have been borrowing the money. Just sayin'.
Yeah, I don’t love paying more for things any more than the next guy. Such is life. Nevertheless as demand grows so does the price tag. We should be pleased that our economy is expanding, employment is strong and average wages have shown real growth.
Yeah, horn-tooting is a characteristic of all politicians everywhere. Biden has a solid record of legislative achievements -- though he often has trouble communicating what was done. Trump "embellishes" his record with falsehoods and inflated claims. You and I probably won't see eye-to-eye on what is/isn't good public policy, but perhaps we can agree on what constitutes truth and what is a lie.
Really? What are Biden’s legislative accomplishments, when you look at them closely? Profligate spending sprees that served as an accelerant for the inflation whose lingering symptoms are now contributing toward his political demise. “Getting things done” is nothing to boast about when they’re the wrong things.
It seems likely that the leftists actually BELIEVE almost none of their "beliefs, from "socialism provides a better standard of living than free enterprise" to "there is a trans genocide going on." The left PRETEND to believe their lies.
They do, I think. Dostoevsky nailed it when he said that every evil in the world begins with a lie. One begins by lying to others and ends by lying to one’s self.
This is a very interesting insight. Perhaps you’ll agree with me then that the Democrats’ “threat to democracy” narrative probably did not motivate the shooter, if you read my most recent post.
Well, at this point we have no idea what motivated him, and I have a feeling that we’ll never know. The guy was kind of a phantom menace, wasn’t he? He seems to have died without leaving much evidence of motive behind. So for now, I’ll reserve judgement.
"If you’re sincere in your claim that Donald Trump constitutes “an existential threat to our democracy,” then shouldn’t he be stopped by any means necessary, violence included?"
Not necessarily. After all, the GOP has no shortage of people who could take Trump's place, albeit many without Trump's legendary charisma.
What's the point of killing Trump if another MAGA candidate will be chosen in his place and also defeat Biden in November? At least Trump's saving grace (like Hitler's, interestingly enough) is that he's incompetent.
People who compared Trump to Hitler, whether serious or not, are despicable. Period. By doing so, they engage in a form of holocaust-denial. As if all Hitler did was issue a bunch of nasty tweets, call his political opponents insulting nicknames, and try to build a wall to keep non-Germans out of Germany.
Well, I do think that the attempted assassination of Trump has taken the wind out of the comrades' sails. They can't argue (a) that Trump's a monster of evil out to destroy America as we know it, then (b) piously declare that they'd never resort to violence without appearing ridiculous. The two propositions are mutually exclusive—unless, I suppose, you're Ghandi.
There are American Fascists/Nazis, such as "The American Nazi Party". There are many look-alikes, such as the numerous White Nationalist groups which I will not deign to list - Wikipedia has a handy list already. Some group members show up as muscle to counter Pro-Choice or anti-Trump protests; some just enjoy the cosplay of dressing up and holding military-style marches and exercises like brownshirts (or pick your favorite shade of black). Regardless of whether or not their members' political aspirations should be taken as a serious threat to our democracy (or our "republic" as conservatives might prefer), no one I know has ever accused Donald Trump of being a member of these groups, i.e. an actual, true-believing Fascist. We should stipulate that Trump is a Trumpist, pure and simple: his motto might be, "In ME I trust -- all others can kiss my a**". . There is no indication that Donald has more than a superficial understanding on the different forms of political systems; in his first term he seemed totally unaware of how government works. At various times, however, he has called on "Patriot" groups and "Second Amendment types" to come out and support him in various ways. Trump is unquestionably the type of leader who values personal loyalty above brains, experience or moral backbone. Trump's political instincts tend towards authoritarian -- he approves of corrupt authoritarians like Putin and corrupt dictators like Kim, So, in my opinion, Trump is, while not an actual fascist, fascist-adjacent in his insistence that only he can solve such and such a problem, and disparagement of immigrants, disabled veterans, etc. He understands at some deep level that offering simple "solutions" to difficult problems will endear him to voters looking for simple answers. And there are certainly plenty of folks who would fall for that line of rhetoric.
Donald J. Trump isn’t a fascist. Nobody really believes that he is. End of story. Period. Full stop. That’s all I’ve been saying. As for the radical Right in America, it’s dangerous and bears watching, but it’s a tiny little collection of fringe kooks who do not have and never will have the slightest political influence.
Thanks Thomas. I appreciate your insight. I'm not really a fan of Donald Trump but as a conservative Evangelical I despise the Left and everything that comes with it. I think the Left have painted themselves into a corner with this event as you've observed.
Your comment about the radical Right actually helps me get some better insight as well. I was on Rumble the other day, and Candace Owens was doing a livestream. I won't start on Owens, but the live chat was unbelievably disturbing. There were Holocaust deniers, and I mean they really don't think it happened. There were comments about how the Jews are really subhuman and a threat to the "free" world and we're all better off if they're exterminated. There were even more bizarre comments about how Hitler was really just misunderstood and framed as a bad man.
Owens for her part has videos up about how the entire history of WW2 that we think we know, is actually a lie and it's (mostly) the Jews' fault, or at least, we don't know everything about how they manipulated the news.
On and on. I consider myself well on the Right, but this was something I haven't actually seen live before, usually staying in my conservative Evangelical bubble. I HOPE these are the people you're referring to as fringe, because they are a kind of evil I didn't want to believe existed. I have my own problems and feel pretty bad about the state of the world...but as James Kirk once said "Somebody else felt a lot worse."
Antisemitism, Holocaust denial, etc. are indeed troubling phenomena, also nothing new. But in A,Erica at least, where on the political spectrum is Jew hatred most evident? Obviously on the Left.
If I have the media-relayed narrative right, no less a personage than Senator Thomas, Vance did at one time (2017??) refer to DJT as "America's Hitler". Obviously he has either changed his opinion about Trump or decided Hitler wasn't such a bad chap after all. Conventional wisdom has it that when commenters compare anything with the politics of the Third Reich they have "jumped the shark" -- i.e. departed the realm of good sense and credibility. I happen to think that historical references, when carefully considered as opposed to loosely tossed around as smears, are a useful way of sizing up current persons and conditions.
As someone who knows a great deal,about the history of National SocialistnGermany, I can assure you that the “Trump = Hitler” line is total b.s. most,people who make such appeals to history don’t know much about history, as I noted in this article:
Yep, I agree on both counts.(a) you know what you are talking about and (b) most people who make that particular comparison do not.
I do not, however, mean that to disparage JD Vance's intelligence on the basis of one off-hand comment. Based on the bit that I have read, I think that overall his prior criticism of Trump was cogent. My concern about Vance being on the ticket is that he has brains where Trump has ego; I do question whether he will be any more successful than Pence in nudging Trump away from acting on his own worst impulses (or those of Miller, Bannon and other schemers).
FWIW, I also think that ideas propounded in the Heritage Foundation's "Mandate for Leadership: Project 2025" are reminiscent of how NSDAP members permeated German government and judicial positions once Hitler was made Reichskanzler (spelling??). Trump has made some vague statements about moving away from the Project, though Vance has made statements about wholesale removal of "deep state" bureaucrats and replacing them with Party loyalists.
Looking on the bright side (assuming there really is one), at least they haven't promulgated any pogroms.
https://open.substack.com/pub/fakenous/p/i-dont-care-about-the-issues?r=b5zww&utm_medium=ios
Maybe I should get a seat on the policy platform committee. Hah. What we have to face is that the low-to-no interest regime that characterized the 10 years or so period up to Covid is not coming back in the foreseeable future. That is life so we have to get used to it. People have always adapted and I expect we always will.
Check the headlines, Thomas..inflation rate has slowed significantly. Still, it is true that prices are also significantly higher than they were at the start of 2022. As for spending -- and here I am thinking of infrastructure projects -- it's not what you spend, it's what you get for your money, OR, what happens when you don't spend wisely and in a timely fashion. US infrastructure has suffered decades of under-spending on deferred maintenance, needed upgrades, etc. in my opinion. And the Trump-era tax cuts are a big reason we have been borrowing the money. Just sayin'.
The fact that inflation has slowed merely means that prices are still going up, just not as rapidly: cOld comfort for many American families.
Yeah, I don’t love paying more for things any more than the next guy. Such is life. Nevertheless as demand grows so does the price tag. We should be pleased that our economy is expanding, employment is strong and average wages have shown real growth.
“Such is life”? There’s a winning message for Team Biden!
Oh, rats, this was meant as a response to your last comment. Sorry.
Yeah, horn-tooting is a characteristic of all politicians everywhere. Biden has a solid record of legislative achievements -- though he often has trouble communicating what was done. Trump "embellishes" his record with falsehoods and inflated claims. You and I probably won't see eye-to-eye on what is/isn't good public policy, but perhaps we can agree on what constitutes truth and what is a lie.
Really? What are Biden’s legislative accomplishments, when you look at them closely? Profligate spending sprees that served as an accelerant for the inflation whose lingering symptoms are now contributing toward his political demise. “Getting things done” is nothing to boast about when they’re the wrong things.
It seems likely that the leftists actually BELIEVE almost none of their "beliefs, from "socialism provides a better standard of living than free enterprise" to "there is a trans genocide going on." The left PRETEND to believe their lies.
They do, I think. Dostoevsky nailed it when he said that every evil in the world begins with a lie. One begins by lying to others and ends by lying to one’s self.
This is a very interesting insight. Perhaps you’ll agree with me then that the Democrats’ “threat to democracy” narrative probably did not motivate the shooter, if you read my most recent post.
After posting my previous comment, I heard the news that the FBI has cracked the shooter's phone and came up empty. The guy remains a ghost.
Well, at this point we have no idea what motivated him, and I have a feeling that we’ll never know. The guy was kind of a phantom menace, wasn’t he? He seems to have died without leaving much evidence of motive behind. So for now, I’ll reserve judgement.
"If you’re sincere in your claim that Donald Trump constitutes “an existential threat to our democracy,” then shouldn’t he be stopped by any means necessary, violence included?"
Not necessarily. After all, the GOP has no shortage of people who could take Trump's place, albeit many without Trump's legendary charisma.
But the GOP isn't going to do that, and at the moment Trump appears likely to defeat Biden in November. So my question stands.
But had Trump been assassinated, someone in his mold could have been chosen as the replacement GOP nominee, no?
Possibly, so my original question still stands.
What's the point of killing Trump if another MAGA candidate will be chosen in his place and also defeat Biden in November? At least Trump's saving grace (like Hitler's, interestingly enough) is that he's incompetent.
People who compared Trump to Hitler, whether serious or not, are despicable. Period. By doing so, they engage in a form of holocaust-denial. As if all Hitler did was issue a bunch of nasty tweets, call his political opponents insulting nicknames, and try to build a wall to keep non-Germans out of Germany.
Hilarious (sorry) - (But Brezhnev? Maybe!)
Kudos to you for getting the joke!
Trump Derangement Syndrome really exists.
Otherwise intelligent, reasonable people lose all sense of rationality and perspective when Trump enters the conversation.
Worse, they become angry and shrill when contemplating Trump.
When (if) Trump is elected and leaves office in 2028, these people will congratulate themselves on having stopped Trump from destroying democracy.
The thought that Trump never wanted to destroy democracy will never enter their minds.
Well, I do think that the attempted assassination of Trump has taken the wind out of the comrades' sails. They can't argue (a) that Trump's a monster of evil out to destroy America as we know it, then (b) piously declare that they'd never resort to violence without appearing ridiculous. The two propositions are mutually exclusive—unless, I suppose, you're Ghandi.
There are American Fascists/Nazis, such as "The American Nazi Party". There are many look-alikes, such as the numerous White Nationalist groups which I will not deign to list - Wikipedia has a handy list already. Some group members show up as muscle to counter Pro-Choice or anti-Trump protests; some just enjoy the cosplay of dressing up and holding military-style marches and exercises like brownshirts (or pick your favorite shade of black). Regardless of whether or not their members' political aspirations should be taken as a serious threat to our democracy (or our "republic" as conservatives might prefer), no one I know has ever accused Donald Trump of being a member of these groups, i.e. an actual, true-believing Fascist. We should stipulate that Trump is a Trumpist, pure and simple: his motto might be, "In ME I trust -- all others can kiss my a**". . There is no indication that Donald has more than a superficial understanding on the different forms of political systems; in his first term he seemed totally unaware of how government works. At various times, however, he has called on "Patriot" groups and "Second Amendment types" to come out and support him in various ways. Trump is unquestionably the type of leader who values personal loyalty above brains, experience or moral backbone. Trump's political instincts tend towards authoritarian -- he approves of corrupt authoritarians like Putin and corrupt dictators like Kim, So, in my opinion, Trump is, while not an actual fascist, fascist-adjacent in his insistence that only he can solve such and such a problem, and disparagement of immigrants, disabled veterans, etc. He understands at some deep level that offering simple "solutions" to difficult problems will endear him to voters looking for simple answers. And there are certainly plenty of folks who would fall for that line of rhetoric.
Donald J. Trump isn’t a fascist. Nobody really believes that he is. End of story. Period. Full stop. That’s all I’ve been saying. As for the radical Right in America, it’s dangerous and bears watching, but it’s a tiny little collection of fringe kooks who do not have and never will have the slightest political influence.
Thanks Thomas. I appreciate your insight. I'm not really a fan of Donald Trump but as a conservative Evangelical I despise the Left and everything that comes with it. I think the Left have painted themselves into a corner with this event as you've observed.
Your comment about the radical Right actually helps me get some better insight as well. I was on Rumble the other day, and Candace Owens was doing a livestream. I won't start on Owens, but the live chat was unbelievably disturbing. There were Holocaust deniers, and I mean they really don't think it happened. There were comments about how the Jews are really subhuman and a threat to the "free" world and we're all better off if they're exterminated. There were even more bizarre comments about how Hitler was really just misunderstood and framed as a bad man.
Owens for her part has videos up about how the entire history of WW2 that we think we know, is actually a lie and it's (mostly) the Jews' fault, or at least, we don't know everything about how they manipulated the news.
On and on. I consider myself well on the Right, but this was something I haven't actually seen live before, usually staying in my conservative Evangelical bubble. I HOPE these are the people you're referring to as fringe, because they are a kind of evil I didn't want to believe existed. I have my own problems and feel pretty bad about the state of the world...but as James Kirk once said "Somebody else felt a lot worse."
Antisemitism, Holocaust denial, etc. are indeed troubling phenomena, also nothing new. But in A,Erica at least, where on the political spectrum is Jew hatred most evident? Obviously on the Left.
If I have the media-relayed narrative right, no less a personage than Senator Thomas, Vance did at one time (2017??) refer to DJT as "America's Hitler". Obviously he has either changed his opinion about Trump or decided Hitler wasn't such a bad chap after all. Conventional wisdom has it that when commenters compare anything with the politics of the Third Reich they have "jumped the shark" -- i.e. departed the realm of good sense and credibility. I happen to think that historical references, when carefully considered as opposed to loosely tossed around as smears, are a useful way of sizing up current persons and conditions.
As someone who knows a great deal,about the history of National SocialistnGermany, I can assure you that the “Trump = Hitler” line is total b.s. most,people who make such appeals to history don’t know much about history, as I noted in this article:
Yep, I agree on both counts.(a) you know what you are talking about and (b) most people who make that particular comparison do not.
I do not, however, mean that to disparage JD Vance's intelligence on the basis of one off-hand comment. Based on the bit that I have read, I think that overall his prior criticism of Trump was cogent. My concern about Vance being on the ticket is that he has brains where Trump has ego; I do question whether he will be any more successful than Pence in nudging Trump away from acting on his own worst impulses (or those of Miller, Bannon and other schemers).
FWIW, I also think that ideas propounded in the Heritage Foundation's "Mandate for Leadership: Project 2025" are reminiscent of how NSDAP members permeated German government and judicial positions once Hitler was made Reichskanzler (spelling??). Trump has made some vague statements about moving away from the Project, though Vance has made statements about wholesale removal of "deep state" bureaucrats and replacing them with Party loyalists.
Looking on the bright side (assuming there really is one), at least they haven't promulgated any pogroms.
Donald Trump's best analogy is Viktor Orban, I think. Though Orban never did anything quite as brazen as what Trump himself did in 2020-2021.