Trump and democracy

[BillyStubbsTears]

That CJCS memo reminds me of something I read from a senior Republican in 2016. It was something to the effect of there was no danger electing Trump, because if he ever went too far over the edge, the military would refuse to carry out his orders.

Which always seemed an odd political stance. "You're safe electing our maniac, because if he ever decides to end the world, we will have a military coup."

[BillyStubbsTears]

That 75 year old man who was shoved over by police and left on the pavement unconscious with blood pouring out of his head.

This is how the Leader of the Free World responds.

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1270333484528214018

[MachoMadness]

All quiet on the KKK member who ploughed his car into a crowd of protestors and shot someone though. Of course.

[BillyStubbsTears]

You know how democracy ends.

Would be autocrats don't go on TV and announce that democracy has ended. They keep the trappings of the democratic process but they hollow it out and make it useless.

Very often they start by making it tough for their opponents to vote.

This is what happened in poor regions of Georgia yesterday.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1228541

Dress rehearsal for this November.

[idler]

Just wait for Trump to shout "Fake News" and his gullible supporters will swallow it wholesale.
The USA system gets more polluted each time that there is a vote. Nothing seems too low to achieve the desired result for certain politicians.

[Ldr]

Pair of you would really enjoy Fahrenheit 9/11 and 11/9 this is nothing new

[idler]

I think my copy got burned.😉

[SydneyRover]

Trump's niece to release expose' on June 28 and said she is the source of tax details to the New Yorks Times exposing his claims of being a business genious as fraud.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/books/mary-trump-book.html?algo=top_conversion&fellback=false&imp_id=946910749&action=click&module=Most%20Popular&pgtype=Homepage

[BillyStubbsTears]

This is a worrying read.

https://theintercept.com/2020/06/10/boogaloo-boys-george-floyd-protests/

Steve Bannon has always wanted a societal breakdown so that society can be reconstructed how he would like it. This feels like another step in that direction.

[MachoMadness]

It's been coming for a while, BST. Have you read about Foundations of Geopolitics before? It's, for lack of a better word, a manifesto written by a Russian strategist in 1997. For anyone who hasn't heard of it, check out the Content section on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

A couple of choice quotes here;
"Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics"."

And, just for good measure;
"The United Kingdom, depicted as an "extraterritorial floating base of the U.S.", should be cut off from Europe."

There's a lot more to it, and if you didn't know any better, you'd say it was a history of the last 25 years - but no, it's from the 90s. Bannon is just another useful idiot.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I'd never heard of that MM. That is truly fascinating. As you say, it sounds like a retrospective on the past 2 decades. I'd bet my mortgage to a pinch of shite that Putin has read and absorbed every page of that.

[SydneyRover]

Astonishingly we probably haven't heard the worst about this man yet

''Trump was willing to halt criminal investigations as 'favor' to dictators, Bolton book says
Trump pleaded with China’s Xi to help re-election effort
President urged Xi to build concentration camps for Muslims''

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/17/john-bolton-book-trump-china-accusations-dictators

[BillyStubbsTears]

Worth noting that John Bolton was THE most extreme right wing member of Dubya's administration. And the Republican party has gone so far to the right that he's now sounding like a shocked realist at what they have let Trump get away with.

[SydneyRover]

it's hardly credible that Bolton is now saying yes we let him get away with this .... I stood by and watched while this happened ...... instead of having trump face a firing squad he's more concerned with building on what must be an already substantial pile for his descendents, ain't America great?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wow.
This from Joe Scarborough, ex-Reoublican congressman, now news analysis anchor.

https://mobile.twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1273375629631774723

Needs to be said. Facebook has become probably THE biggest threat to democracy.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Did you ever think you'd live to see the day that an American President would use Nazi iconography to attack American citizens?

Well it's happened.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53098439

[Ldr]

Interesting, so Antifa are using Nazi iconography? From the same article

"The inverted red triangle is a symbol used by antifa, so it was included in an ad about antifa," Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said in a statement.

[BillyStubbsTears]

From a Trump campaign spokesman from the same issue actually.

The Trump campaign showed this image last night as an example of this.



A Google search for that image shows no results before yesterday.

Equally, I've Googled "Antifa red triangle" and found no examples.

I'm not saying it's untrue, but if so, it's odd for the Trump campaign to choose to publicise an obscure Antifa symbol. I consider myself pretty well informed politically, but I didn't see that image and think "Oh yeah. That's the Antifa symbol".

[Ldr]

I've certainly never seen it before

[SydneyRover]

I had a look too, on some of the photos there's an 'A' on a banner with a red ground which sort of looks like a red triangle but nothing like the one trump is using of course.

[Not Now Kato]

Trump - unbelievable given the BLM situation in the US....
 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53212685

[SydneyRover]

That's a very dangerous combination being thick and racist.

[Glyn_Wigley]

That's a very dangerous combination being thick and racist.

I think the intelligent racist is more dangerous. The thick ones don't even know they're racists.

[SydneyRover]

Good point Glyn

[BillyStubbsTears]

Four months from the election of course, but the polls are looking very bad for Trump.

He's well behind in all the key swing states (Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan) that Biden needs to win, and even in some usually string Republican states like Arizona and North Carolina.


Latest one even has him behind in Missouri, which twice voted Republican against Obama's landslides, and voted 57-38 for Trump over Clinton in 2016.

[BillyStubbsTears]

And this is why it's pretty well impossible to see Trump winning in November. He's destroyed his own chances by tipping the country into a frightening second wave that will have devastating economic consequences.

https://mobile.twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1278367822805118979

Standby now for him trying to get the election cancelled.

[SydneyRover]

War anyone? it won't be China he's a pub bully so will only pick a country without an army.

[tyke1962]

The US have had a good look at his administration now , this is a very different thing to challenging for the White House and giving him the opportunity .

He's got his nut jack supporters but there's enough conservative Republicans who've had enough of the shyte show and embarrassment .

He's a gonna .

[BillyStubbsTears]

I'm expecting he's going to lose by a historic margin in November. Arizona is in play and the Republicans have only lost that state twice since WWII. That is how badly he has f**ked up.

For all Biden's faults, the world desperately needs Trump to be cast out. And everyone who truly believes in democracy should celebrate that. There are things that are way more important than your side winning.

[BillyStubbsTears]

And this is why they HAVE to lose. If there's any hope.

https://mobile.twitter.com/IChotiner/status/1278098449238384640

That's a Republican activist encouraging Republican supporters to get outraged at other people doing something that will save other people's lives.


How far down into the pit are these f**kers?