Trump 40: Donald Trump and the Chamber of Incompetence

[Howl]

16 hours ago, Dandruff said:

I think he's seen as the proxy for their own hate and stupidity.  They, by and large, need to STFU for their own sakes but he openly lets it fly.  He flaunts his power.  Opens the dam.  The crowds roar and the marginalized cringe.  Seems pretty 1930's-ish to me.

Yes, it's incredibly 1930s, Rwandan genocide and other genocides. That amps up excitement for the white demographic who are not necessarily super religious. 

I came across this October 2016 (just before the election!) article from a Website called Religion Dispatches.  It's a prescient deep dive into why Evangelicals/Teavangelicals support Trump and is even more relevant today, over two years later.  The author is Roger O. Friedland, a professor of religious studies at UC Santa Barbara. His current work focuses on politicized religion worldwide. 

This article so clearly unpacks the Religious Right/evangelical dynamic of support for Trump when the rest of us are still going, "Why the hell do THOSE PEOPLE support this scumbag?"

I think we all need to understand this dynamic clearly, because it outlines to me that 2020 will NOT be a slam dunk for the Democratic candidate.  

Fairly long read, so settle in. 

 

 

[smittykins]

Is there a link?

[apple1]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/08/politics/randolph-tex-alles-secret-service-director/index.html

Quote

"There is a near-systematic purge happening at the nation's second-largest national security agency," one senior administration official says.

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services director Francis Cissna and Office of the General Counsel's John Mitnick are expected to be gone soon, and the White House is eyeing others to be removed.

The President in recent weeks empowered Stephen Miller to lead the administration's border policies "and he's executing his plan" with what amounts to a wholesale decapitation or the Department of Homeland Security leadership, the official says.

I wish I had been wrong. Very scary.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

46 minutes ago, apple1 said:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/08/politics/randolph-tex-alles-secret-service-director/index.html

I wish I had been wrong. Very scary.

I need a scared emoji.

what the hell is happening to our country?

[formergothardite]

9 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

what the hell is happening to our country?

It is quickly falling to pieces. It is going to take a very, very long time to recover from Trump if we ever recover from him and the GOP. 

[47of74]

Just came across the nickname Corruptus Maximus for fuck head. I like it. Going to use it to describe fuckhead from now on when I can’t use swear words to describe the orange fuck.

And when I can I’m putting Corruptus Fuckheadus into the rotation.

[Dandruff]

1 hour ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I need a scared emoji.

what the hell is happening to our country?

A feral dog is marking its territory in the company of a selected pack.

[AuntK]

It's really depressing how our country seems to be slowly circling the drain, with no end in sight, as Trump worsens daily. I ran across this piece by John Pavlovitz today, it helps. I highly recommend just about everything he writes. He's a minister, but not like you'd  expect!

https://johnpavlovitz.com/2019/04/03/heres-why-you-should-stay-hopeful-right-now/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=johnpavlovitz

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

I always carry a signal detector at the pool, is that weird??

Edited April 8, 2019 by AmazonGrace

[Howl]

7 hours ago, smittykins said:

Is there a link?

A KING FOR JESUS: WHAT THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT SEES IN TRUMP

[GreyhoundFan]

"Kirstjen Nielsen just revealed how Trump’s pathologies and lawlessness will get worse"

Spoiler

It has become a ritual of the Trump years: Each time President Trump parts ways with one of his top advisers or associates, that person then embarks on an effort to expunge the deep moral stain left behind by his or her service to Trump’s depraved, corrupt, incompetent, and even sometimes criminal designs.

In the case of Kirstjen Nielsen, who has just been pushed out as homeland security secretary by Trump amid his rage over the spike in asylum-seeking families at the border, this process is proving more revealing — and unsettling — than usual.

This act of expungement typically requires one of several types of self-cleansing. The now-banished party reveals that the acts he or she did carry out were done with great, anguished reluctance, or that he or she stuck around to prevent worse from happening, or that Trump demanded numerous acts that he or she just could not bring herself to commit.

Nielsen’s version of this ritual runs through some of these steps. Yet in so doing, it hints at ways in which Trump could very well try to engage in conduct that is substantially more heinous and lawless.

Miller consolidates power, but Trump is ‘out of ideas’

Trump fired Nielsen because he wants a “tougher” approach to the migrant crisis than Nielsen has implemented.

Along those lines, Politico reports that Nielsen’s ouster reflects Trump immigration adviser Stephen Miller’s consolidation of power inside the administration. Miller is trying to bring in more immigration “hard-liners,” because he is “frustrated by the lack of headway” that the administration has made on immigration.

That “lack of headway" is that migrants keep coming to the border — the number could reach 1 million this year. Most of them are asylum-seeking families, and Trump is in a rage about them, leading him to lurch erratically from one posture to another.

Trump declared a national emergency to build his wall and has threatened to close the southern border (neither of which would actually solve the problem), a threat he has withdrawn and then reiterated in the space of days. He is cutting off aid to Northern Triangle countries (which would make the problem worse), and is demanding that Democrats give him changes to the law he wants (which they won’t do).

Now, as Politico reports, Miller is privately telling allies that the administration is at wits’ end:

Last week, as Trump threatened once again to shut down the border ... Miller held a conference call with immigration activists to explain the administration’s position and answer questions.

He has told allies that the administration is out of ideas about how to stem the migrant tide at the border, according to a source familiar with the conversations.

Out of ideas! So what now? New details emerging about the ouster of Nielsen provide a clue as to what Miller’s increasing control might mean in practice.

Trump wanted Nielsen to break the law

Among the most indelible moral stains that Nielsen will take into private life, of course, is her role in implementing Trump’s horrific 2018 policy of family separations. We are now learning, via leaks to the New York Times, that Nielsen “hesitated for weeks” before signing the memo authorizing the policy. But Trump castigated her mercilessly in private, leading her to capitulate.

Such leaks will not have the desired cleansing effect, however, because as the Times also reports, Nielsen became a “defender” of such policies. That said, there do appear to be things Trump demanded that she would not do:

The president called Ms. Nielsen at home early in the mornings to demand that she take action to stop migrants from entering the country, including doing things that were clearly illegal, such as blocking all migrants from seeking asylum. She repeatedly noted the limitations imposed on her department by federal laws, court settlements and international obligations.

Those responses only infuriated Mr. Trump further.

Trump repeatedly demanded that Nielsen break the law, by closing the border to asylum-seeking entirely.

Trump has a real agenda, and it’s extreme and crazy

It’s important to appreciate that this demand of Nielsen flows from what appears to be an actual aspiration on Trump’s part. In recent days, Trump has repeatedly said our country is “full,” which is another way of saying the same thing: If he had his way, we would not take in a single additional asylum seeker.

Indeed, Trump has linked this assertion directly to his threat to close the border, which seems to indicate that, when he threatens to do this, he thinks he’s threatening to end asylum-seeking entirely. This is utter lunacy — because of geographic realities, closing official ports of entry would not prevent people from setting foot on U.S. soil, after which they can exercise their legal right to apply for it.

But Trump actually does appear to want to end this as a right. It’s what he reportedly demanded that Nielsen do, and she refused.

Many other things he and Miller have done are all about progressing toward that goal in some way. In multiple ways, they’ve tried to restrict the ways people can apply or qualify for asylum. They’ve lowered the cap on refugees and used bureaucratic tactics to slash those numbers further.

Now they are pushing for changes to the law that would make it possible to detain asylum-seeking families — including children — for far longer, and to more easily deport Central American migrant children.

These would not address the terrible civil conditions in home countries that are largely causing the migrations in the first place. Trump has ended aid to those countries, while doing everything possible to either slam the door on asylum seekers entirely, or to deter them from fleeing those horrific conditions by threatening unspeakable cruelties here.

None of those things has worked. But Nielsen has been fired, because Trump wants something still “tougher” than all those things. Like what? Miller says the administration is out of ideas.

But one thing we can be reasonably certain of is that if Trump could get away with it, he’d do far worse things. As The Post reports, Nielsen actually held on to her job for this perverse reason:

Trump told aides last fall that he wanted to fire Nielsen, and he grew increasingly agitated as a large caravan of Central American migrants reached the U.S.-Mexico border near San Diego. She appeared to regain her footing after U.S. Border Patrol agents used tear gas to repel a large crowd attempting to break through a border fence — the kind of “tough” action Trump said he wanted in a DHS secretary.

Add to this the fact that Trump repeatedly instructed Nielsen to break the law, and you get an idea of what Trump might be capable of doing. What those things will look like we don’t know, but we may soon find out.

It’s fitting that this is happening right when an old quote from Trump — in which he called some migrants “animals” — is once again being debated. Reporters rushed forth to proclaim that Trump was only talking about MS-13 gang members, which isn’t even clear to begin with, and doesn’t seriously reckon with how determined Trump is to dehumanize asylum seekers, and the rhetorical tricks he employs to do so.

But the circumstances around Nielsen’s ouster should make it impossible for anyone to feign naivete about the depths of Trump’s depravity and inhumanity any longer.

 

[SilverBeach]

10 hours ago, Howl said:

Yes, it's incredibly 1930s, Rwandan genocide and other genocides. That amps up excitement for the white demographic who are not necessarily super religious. 

I came across this October 2016 (just before the election!) article from a Website called Religion Dispatches.  It's a prescient deep dive into why Evangelicals/Teavangelicals support Trump and is even more relevant today, over two years later.  The author is Roger O. Friedland, a professor of religious studies at UC Santa Barbara. His current work focuses on politicized religion worldwide. 

This article so clearly unpacks the Religious Right/evangelical dynamic of support for Trump when the rest of us are still going, "Why the hell do THOSE PEOPLE support this scumbag?"

I think we all need to understand this dynamic clearly, because it outlines to me that 2020 will NOT be a slam dunk for the Democratic candidate.  

Fairly long read, so settle in. 

 

 

Link?

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Drala]

11 hours ago, Howl said:

A KING FOR JESUS: WHAT THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT SEES IN TRUMP

I read this through a bit quickly, so I could be off with my take on the substance of Friedland's thesis.  Among other things, Friedland discusses the idealized role of the ancient Near Eastern warrior kings in leading and protecting the people as a prototype for the Trump presidency as a patriarchal strongman.  His essay concludes: "Trump is not running to be a god, but a king chosen by a chosen people, a people long in exile, awaiting the man who can defeat their enemies and deliver them to greatness."  The Religious Right/Christian nationalists' longing for a king (aka, despot) to restore a "godly" nation to its former glory is mind-boggling to me, not because I don't have a background in the biblical narratives that inform their thinking, but because I do.  When it comes to national politics, the Religious Right is basically saying, "We have no king but Caesar."    

[AmazonGrace]

Trump thinks God is running to be Trump.

[formergothardite]

4 minutes ago, Drala said:

When it comes to national politics, the Religious Right is basically saying, "We have no king but Caesar."    

The support for Trump is such a huge change from what I was taught by this same evangelical movement. Morality and being Christ like was more important than anything else. But they have now switched to morality doesn't matter, being Christ like doesn't matter, obeying the Bible doesn't matter as long as we get what we want. I was stunned reading that the pastor said that if Jesus was running against Trump he would choose Trump because he wanted someone who was mean. They have become the very people who would reject Christ  and probably vote for him to be crucified. They choose power over the teachings of the one they say is God. 

I do think that siding with Trump might just be the beginning of the end for the huge influence of evangelicals. Younger people are already moving away from religion and are more likely to hold more liberal beliefs. Siding with someone who preaches hate  and tramples on the teachings of Jesus just shows their hypocrisy and it is going to be difficult to claim any moral high ground after this. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Drala]

Trump avoids having to get Congressional approval necessary for appointments to many of those positions by keeping them open under "acting" leadership.   

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

10 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Another sign of Trump's mental decline: Fixation on one singular subject, and getting more and more extreme in attempts to achieve what he wants.

I suspect Miller is whispering in his ear and fanning his paranoia. And don't forget that although Miller is essentially in charge of immigration policies, he holds that position of power without ever being appointed, or approved by Congress. 

A poignant sign of a sharp decline of democracy.

[fraurosena]

I think he took his meds today -- or maybe he didn't snort his Adderall yet -- because his sentences are actually understandable. What he says is a lie and illogical, but at least he's getting his words out correctly.

 

[AmazonGrace]

On 4/8/2019 at 6:55 PM, Howl said:

Yes, it's incredibly 1930s, Rwandan genocide and other genocides. T

 

 

As far as I'm concerned the family separation tent city immigration policy already counts as genocide. At least B and E apply. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide
.

Quote

 

.. any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily harm, or harm to mental health, to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Why does he sit like he's on the toilet?

[HerNameIsBuffy]

38 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

- or maybe he didn't snort his Adderall yet

As someone who has taken prescribed adderall for years my words are much more fluent when public speaking if I rememeber to take it than if I don’t.

8 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Why does he sit like he's on the toilet?

He totally is!