The Official Former President Trump thread

[Wee-Bey]

55 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

I mean Trump and the people he's enabled have been a disaster for millions of people and him winning again will continue to make millions of people's lives worse but Biden isn't remotely capable of fixing the problems which caused Trump in the first place. 

Big Savage on here repeatedly insists lefties don't hate Trump as much as libs do and I actually agree with him. Trump is a singular evil for libs because not only is he an awful president who's enabled shitty people to enact horrible policies on people for the last four years but he's also uncouth and pisses on the norms that these people love. Leftists, on the other hand, by and large see him as a (uniquely deranged) culmination of the last however many decades of US history and recognise that, however uniquely deranged he is, he has governed largely as an establishment Republican. 

Remember these people have literally rehabilitated Mitt Romney, John McCain and BOTH GEORGE BUSHES because of Trump. 

I think the biggest singular criticism you can make of Trump that you can't make of other Republicans is that he has gleefully enabled a deranged and dangerous populist base of white nationalism. The others are usually a bit savvier with their dog whistles and know when to rein it in.

Trump is also seen as the end boss, defeating him means defeating all that is bad (and Russia) and things can return to normal. He's seen as the beginning and end and not as you say just the next step in the road to whatever -ism you want to describe the US as.

Even if Biden wins, the Dems appear to have learned precisely zero from Hilldog's loss, have zero interest in doing anything remotely radical to improve things and are effectively just going to kick the can further down the road, but hey, the muslim ban will be overturned, the ICE camps will still be there, but not in the news so much and we can all go to brunch.

 

[pandarilla]

Wrecking Paris agreement, destroying all national parks etc ranks pretty highly too. 

Compare that to some of the foreign policy disasters under the Bushes and raegan.

Trump could've been worse.

[NotThePars]

Wrecking Paris agreement, destroying all national parks etc ranks pretty highly too. 

Yep. He’s accelerated the worrying trends on a number of fronts. The problem is, nobody sincerely believes the Dems will do enough to reverse them and they’ve spent the cycle so far doing their best to convince everyone of that. The choice is accelerated or managed decline into oblivion. How fun for the world.

[Dunning1874]

45 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

The choice is accelerated or managed decline into oblivion.

 

I find it somehow reassuring to consider the fate of the last global superpower as a toss up between Clyde 2009-2013 v Airdrie 2009-2013.

[SandyCromarty]

12 hours ago, Detournement said:

Where as war with Iraq and militarized policing from Biden isn't?

That is a possibility and Biden was VP under Obama when he backed Obama's authorisation of US military support to the Saudi's in their war against Yemen, again in February 2009 he backed Obama when he increased the number of US troops to 17,000 in Afghanistan, this number was increased to 30,000 by Dec 2009.

Obama did reduce the US military numbers to 50,000 combat troops from a total of 140,000 and did finally remove troops completely, but by 2014 he deployed troops and military weaponry back into Iraq, albeit in smaller numbers to around 5,000 personnel, however increased air sorties became the norm.

In Libya and with the backing of Biden Obama ordered military air strikes against poorly equipped Libyan government defences, this included the use of Tomahawk missiles, Stealth Bombers and fighter jets, all of this state of the art war weaponry against what could only be described as a small ground defence force and civilian casualties were high, there has remained doubt as to whether Obama and Biden had the constitutional authority to order this military action.

All of this took place with hardly any dissent from the US media.

Trump has been described on here as being evil and dangerous, yes he is in inarticulate fool who spouts shite which whips up disgraceful and disturbing acts and protest within his own country but as I have said before he is the first US President since 1942 who has not started or escalated a war.

Biden in collusion with Obama has the blood of innocent civilians on his hands.

Evil and Dangerous? 

Edited September 24, 2020 by SandyCromarty

[Savage Henry]

17 hours ago, SandyCromarty said:

Biden beating Trump would be replacing like for like.

So it's down to the highly intelligent American electorate to choose which Clown has the bigger red nose.

It absolutely wouldn’t.  Not if you are looking to the US DHS to be non-politicised, or if you want ICE to be something other than barbaric.  Nor would it be if you were seeking abortion in the southern states, or in any way connected with BLM, which is currently regarded as a terrorist organisation by precisely one of the two people you mentioned.  

You also claim repeatedly that Trump hasn’t escalated any military tensions.  As someone who has spent the entire Trump presidency working in places like Mosul, Diyarbakir and Baghdad, among other places, I can assure you that isn’t true, and if it was it would be because the State Department have been deliberately going against his expressed views.  

What do you think the point of moving US military out of Erbil and into Saudi Arabia was for?  Stability?   Those troops are still in Saudi, by the way, and US military presence in Iraq is now very close to 2016 numbers.  What he has done, incidentally, is drastically reduce State department funding for international and community development programmes such as microscholarships and educational programmes and into the hands of GOP donors and his own family.  Tensions do not entirely depend on military numbers. 
 

Its not a question of opposing Trump and supporting Biden.  NotThePars is right.  Biden would change little in terms of the self-serving norms which make the USA such a basket case of free market libertarianism.  There are progressives within the Democrat party that would be far more radical/reasonable.   But he absolutely, categorically and definitely isn’t just as bad as Trump.   

Edit: it strikes me, for the reasons identified by NotThePars, that the people who should be most concerned with Trump are the Republicans who enable him, and are going to see their careers and legacies shot down in flames   

 

 

 

 

Edited September 24, 2020 by Savage Henry

[Detournement]

A Neocon speaks lol

[welshbairn]

Cuddly pacifist Uncle Donald launched 2243 drone attacks in his first 2 years compared to 1878 in Obama's 8 years, then he stopped counting. And has banned the numbers of civilian casualties being reported. Authority for launching them has been delegated to local commander and CIA level, so he can't be held accountable if information leaks out.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47480207

[killiepiemuncher]

Cuddly pacifist Uncle Donald launched 2243 drone attacks in his first 2 years compared to 1878 in Obama's 8 years, then he stopped counting. And has banned the numbers of civilian casualties being reported. Authority for launching them has been delegated to local commander and CIA level, so he can't be held accountable if information leaks out.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47480207

Ooo an inconvenient truth.

[Savage Henry]

1 hour ago, MixuFruit said:

Neither candidate is good & their politics are a product of the way the USA works but the blue one will be marginally better than the red one shouldn't be a terribly contentious position to adopt.

 

ETA: all academic really, this gon b gud

 

Another neocon speaks, lol, presumably.

Edit: on a serious note, the argument that “they’re both as bad as each other” is either a get-out to seem wise after the fact in any result of the election, or a tacit approval of Trump, knowing full well supporting him equates to racism, prejudice and incompetence. 

Edited September 24, 2020 by Savage Henry

[Savage Henry]

1 minute ago, MixuFruit said:

Yeah I don't really have any time for the Idealogically Pure who have Thought About Things A Great Deal and opted not to dirty their conscience using their vote.

John Bolton says hi.

[Detournement]

13 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

Another neocon speaks, lol, presumably.

Edit: on a serious note, the argument that “they’re both as bad as each other” is either a get-out to seem wise after the fact in any result of the election, or a tacit approval of Trump, knowing full well supporting him equates to racism, prejudice and incompetence. 

Biden is extremely racist as well though and the crime bill was largely written by him.

[Savage Henry]

1 minute ago, Detournement said:

Biden is extremely racist as well though and the crime bill was largely written by him.

Perhaps, perhaps not.  He isn’t by any stretch of the imagination my candidate.  He’s much preferable to the orange shitgibbon, however.  

[welshbairn]

Another favourite for Nobel Peace Prize hungry Donald is downgrading diplomacy in favour of assassination along with unilateral sanctions and boycotts, backed by US control of the financial system to punish any country or company not joining in.

Edited September 24, 2020 by welshbairn

[Ira Gaines]

Another favourite is openly encouraging violence against journalists and openly encouraging violence against minorities.

Trump is absolutely diabolical. I've said many times that he can't reach new lows because he has no bottom, and you're kidding yourself if you think he won't get worse.

Edited September 24, 2020 by Andre Drazen

[NotThePars]

Yeah I don't really have any time for the Idealogically Pure who have Thought About Things A Great Deal and opted not to dirty their conscience using their vote.

Most of the people I’ve read who can’t in good conscience vote for Biden are active in multiple forms of activism and are voting for other down ballot candidates come November. I wouldn’t go as far as the people who dismiss all voting as
a bourgeois affectation and I’ve voted in all but one elections I’ve been allowed to vote in but there are plenty of well thought out and sensible reasons for people (largely in safe seats) to refuse to give Biden their vote.

People can talk down to these people and tell voters they’re being childish for not sucking it up and voting for the lesser of two evils again but that’s one of the big reasons why social democratic parties have been taking Ls for the last two decades.

[welshbairn]

Quote

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

 

[Ira Gaines]

I totally see why people don't vote Biden and have no problem with it. I DO have a problem with people saying they're just as bad as each other, when they're clearly not. 

I'd probably vote Biden if it was my place to do so but I'm not sure how good I'd feel about it.

[Savage Henry]

26 minutes ago, Andre Drazen said:

I totally see why people don't vote Biden and have no problem with it. I DO have a problem with people saying they're just as bad as each other, when they're clearly not. 

I'd probably vote Biden if it was my place to do so but I'm not sure how good I'd feel about it.

Right.  Voting for Biden unenthusiastically and unhesitatingly seems an entirely reasonable point of view.  Abstaining in swing states because Biden isn't Bernie doesn't.

[Wee-Bey]

I suspect that many on the left not planning to vote are doing so because they are just fed up of being ratfucked and taken for granted by a party that has zero interest in meaningful change.

*smirking 'yeah, I'm offering you f**k all, but check the other guy out, just vote for me and shut the f**k up'

Trying to pitch this election as an end of days, defining battle for the soul of the republic isn't washing with them either and there's probably a case for saying that 4 or 8 years of Biden/Harris managed decline could well produce a 2024/28  Republican candidate even worse than Trump.