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RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - pbrower2a - 07-23-2017
(07-21-2017, 09:47 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(07-21-2017, 11:50 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I understand the point that we can't convince Trump supporters of the error of their ways by insulting or ridiculing them. On the other hand, they are the ones who created him, and so they are responsible for everything that he and the Republicans do. If they are this stupid, then maybe they are fair game. At least it should be understandable why some comics, reporters, blue-spinners and pundits make fun of them or call them out.
How Deranged Are Trump Supporters? New Poll Shows That It's Worse Than You Ever Imagined
By News Corpse
Wednesday Jul 19, 2017 · 4:22 PM PDT
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/7/19/1682182/-How-Deranged-Are-Trump-Supporters-New-Poll-Shows-That-It-s-Worse-Than-You-Ever-Imagined?detail=emaildkre
In the Era of Trump, Americans have been been subjected to wild diversions from reality. Donald Trump and company have unleashed baseless accusations of "fake news," and the ceaseless dissemination of "alternative facts." They have violated constitutional protections of free speech and abused the media in an unprecedented manner. Trump called the media "the enemy of the American people." And his White House Press Office has discontinued on-camera briefings.
This overt hostility and flagrant assault on transparency has had an impact on a certain sector of the electorate. Trump voters have evolved into a breed of ill-informed, willfully ignorant yokels whose devotion to their Orange Julius Caesar borders on cult worship. This alarming descent into madness is frightfully illustrated in the results of a new survey by Public Policy Polling (PPP). The depth of the delirium of these lost souls is unimaginable. And yet, the data from the PPP pollsters is clear. Here are some examples from the study:
Only 45% of Trump voters believe Donald Trump Jr. had a meeting with Russians about information that might be harmful to Hillary Clinton...even though Trump Jr. admitted it. 32% say the meeting didn't happen and 24% say they're not sure.
72% of Trump voters consider the Russia story overall to be 'fake news,' only 14% disagree.
Only 24% of Trump voters even want an investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, 64% are opposed to an investigation.
Only 26% of Trump voters admit that Russia wanted Trump to win the election, 44% claim Russia wanted Hillary Clinton to win, and 31% say they're not sure one way or the other.
Even if there was an investigation, and it found that the Trump campaign did collude with Russia to aid his campaign, 77% of his supporters think he should still stay in office to just 16% who believe he should resign.
What manner of sickness is this? Less than half of the Trump disciples believe that Don, Jr. met with Russians despite his having confirmed it. Do they think he's lying? More troubling though, is that more than three quarters of the StormTrumpers are comfortable with him serving as president even if he conspired with a foreign hostile enemy to steal the election.
Is there any line he can't cross? Apparently not. Because the survey also asked a question referencing Trump's campaign comment that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters. And 45% of Trump voters said they would still approve of him if he shot someone. This is Jonestown-level dementia. When people talk about "drinking the Kool-Aid," they can't get closer to that comparison than this.
As a final humiliation to the President, PPP asked respondents to indicate who they trusted more: Trump or various media organizations. Trump lost in every match up:
Voters say they trust NBC and ABC each more than him, 56/38. They say they trust CBS more than him 56/39. They say they trust the New York Times more than him 55/38. Voters say they trust CNN more than him 54/39. And they say they trust the Washington Post more than him 53/38.
Those are significant majorities that favor the "failing" New York Times and "fake news" CNN. Despite Trump's relentless efforts to negatively brand his media adversaries, he has had no success in doing so. And his continued whining in the face of that rejection is pathetic.
However, his glassy-eyed followers will undoubtedly fall in line no matter what atrocities he commits. That's a sad commentary on the state of the nation. It remains to be seen how they will eventually react when the hammer comes down on his criminality. They may just pretend not to have supported him in the first place. After all, the one thing we've learned about them is that they have an unlimited capacity for self-delusion.
The Trumpists are a combination of Anti Western Fiends and those who've been duped by Anti Western Fiends. The enemy is within the gates. Liquidation, either judicially or if that fails, extra judicially, is the remedy.
Read "Origins of the Fourth World War." Observe the scenario of the Arch General. This gives some idea of what might ultimately occur, when the truly patriotic remnant no longer care to tolerate the Anti Western Fiends among us.
Glossary:
fake news (1) news items known to be fabricated, plagiarized, distorted, falsely-attributed, or discredited; the antithesis of good journalism that seeks to relate objective reality without embellishment. (2) objective reality as the political leadership wants suppressed or denied.
alternative facts (1) in science fiction, alterations of historical reality to create the genre of alternative history, such as a German victory in the First World War. (2) falsehoods offered as objective reality.
enemy of the people (see also "public enemy") (1) a person who violates normal codes of behavior to the endangerment or exploitation of people as a whole, for example John Dillinger or some non-human menace such as "child pornography", "tuberculosis" or "crack cocaine". (2) in Stalinist terms, somebody that the political leadership sees as a threat to its power and is thus damned to elimination through assassination or execution.
The first definition is plain and honest language. The second one is Orwellian.
The real hazard of Orwellian language is not so much that it tells the simple, crude lie that consists of a crude negation of truth that with slight research one can debunk easily. The second turns words themselves into lies, degrading the ability of people to communicate at all.
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - Eric the Green - 07-27-2017
Well, Oscar winner and unrestrained activist and commentator Michael Moore disagrees with Bob!
Michael Moore implied he might run against Trump in 2020. 16-6 score; he would have a chance! He's actually quite likeable. But, an army of satire would be a good alternative!
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - Eric the Green - 07-27-2017
Kewl! Let's get Sargeant Seth into the act!
Ask the "professional speed bump" what loyalty means to Drump!
And what does Eric say?
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - pbrower2a - 07-27-2017
President Trump showed himself a jerk by trying to politicize a Boy Scout jamboree.
Quote:CNN : Boy Scouts chief apologizes after Trump speech.
Michael Surbaugh, the Chief Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts, just wrote a letter apologizing for the political rhetoric of Trump's speech at Monday's Jamboree.
"I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree. That was never our intent," he wrote.
Surbaugh also added that for those at home, the work of the Jamboree this week was "overshadowed" by Trump's remarks.
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - pbrower2a - 07-27-2017
I'm surprised that nobody discussed this here. I did in another forum:
President Trump spoke at a Boy Scout jamboree and brought up:
* His election win
* "Fake news"
* Yachts
* Cocktail Parties
* President Obama
To Boy Scouts
Not to mention he had them boo both Clinton and Obama.
But the Boy Scouts have traditionally been non-partisan. Most Boy Scouts are not going to participate in the next Presidential election because they are under 14. In accordance with long-standing policies of Scouting, Boy Scouts and Scouting activities are not to be used for partisan politics... Boy Scouts may participate in partisan politics, but they are not allowed to identify themselves in any way with the Boy Scouts of America.
John F. Kennedy, the closest analogue as an electoral winner, worked to bring Republicans to his side on issues instead of transforming them into pariahs. To get his pet agenda, including Civil Rights, he would need the support of Republicans. Kennedy started working on that. He did not put fault on Eisenhower (who was very dissimilar) as a 'failure'. He did not vilify Nixon.
But to paraphrase the late Lloyd Bentsen, Donald Trump is "no Jack Kennedy".
"Fake news"? It's up to the youth of America to develop the rational thought necessary for discerning objective reality from propaganda. People need to determine what to trust and what not to trust. That will require paying attention to civics... and taking demanding courses in high school. Of course that will help make today's youth anything but the 'low-information voters' that Donald Trump said that he appreciated.
"Yachts"? Material display and indulgence do not make a nation great. Those are drains on the capital for potential investment; besides, a craving for these indicates a soulless person. We need to make America good for people who will never set foot on a yacht. If you want to know what made America great -- it was the sort of person who threw himself onto a live grenade to save his buddies -- who may have lived to become such 'scum' as a preacher in the ghetto, the founder of a small business, a successful farmer who took over from his father, a high-school math teacher, a state trooper, a real-estate broker who made a subdivision possible, a banker who connected people with their dreams... and the usual mass of construction and assembly-line workers.
That is one of the most common descriptions of people who got Medals of Honor for "service beyond the call of duty" in World War II -- shielding their buddies lives from an exploding grenade at the cost of their lives. Many of those heroes who died so that their buddies would live were Boy Scouts in the 1930s. To be sure, I can't imagine FDR having told Boy Scouts to be bloodthirsty militarists intent on martyrdom... he did not need to.
I am sure that yachts are fun. But I prefer people who do not need them. If you ever saw The Wolf of Wall Street (which I saw onlya few noghts ago on cable TV)... I am glad that for all the hardships that I have known, the least of them was that I have never experienced whores, cocaine, quaaludes, or stripper parties.
Cocktail parties? Cocktail parties? Boy Scouts are typically much underage for participating in cocktail parties.
President Obama? Like him or not, he had his virtues.
But let's see how Donald Trump fits the Scout Law in the United States, one still in existence for 106 years:
A Scout is ....(pregnant pause).... trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
How well that describes Donald Trump is for people other than me to contemplate.
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - Eric the Green - 08-03-2017
Trump's religion.
It's always a good time!
https://youtu.be/NN4l8CaKT6k
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - pbrower2a - 08-04-2017
(07-28-2017, 10:27 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(07-27-2017, 05:14 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: President Trump showed himself a jerk by trying to politicize a Boy Scout jamboree.
Quote:CNN : Boy Scouts chief apologizes after Trump speech.
Michael Surbaugh, the Chief Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts, just wrote a letter apologizing for the political rhetoric of Trump's speech at Monday's Jamboree.
"I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree. That was never our intent," he wrote.
Surbaugh also added that for those at home, the work of the Jamboree this week was "overshadowed" by Trump's remarks.
Hitler was Stalin's "Icebreaker." The Icebreaker concept is the concept of installation of a damaging individual into a keystone Western nation or series of them. That individual ultimately breaks the ice for conquest by the East Bloc.
While Trump is not a Hitler, he is a type of Icebreaker. By damaging the US from the inside he helps to break up the soil for the East Bloc's seed.
I have had plenty of encounters on the Web with people who have claimed all sorts of weird and indefensible positions on history. One of the most absurd is that Adolf Hitler saved the West from sudden conquest by Stalin. Basically his invasion or the Soviet Union saved the West from imminent defeat by Stalin and Bolshevism.
To this I say... why did Hitler agree with Stalin to carve up conservative, anti-Communist Poland? Why did he deal Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania to the Soviet Union? (the Finns fought the Soviet Union and got generous terms of surrender, contrary to the plans of Stalinist gangsters). Why did he choose to carve up the monarchical regime in Yugoslavia only to go on a course of events that would leave a hard-line pro-Soviet regime (until 1948) in Yugoslavia after defeat? Why did he commit conservative Hungary and conservative Romania to a suicidal participation in Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union? Why did he invade democratic countries of western Europe?
Oh, the Jews were culpable for Bolshevism? Yeah, sure -- all those devout scholars and all those businessmen who knew that the Commies would throttle their religion and seize their businesses that they consider precious? If Germany were a democracy and got thrust into a Stalinist danger from invasion, then Germany would have been in far better condition in which to fend off the 'Bolshevik' threat. When Stalin makes the misjudgment of believing that he can get a quick and decisive victory by invading British India -- Churchill ends up second fiddle to the German chancellor (Adenauer?) -- as an ally. The Jewish entrepreneurs, scientists, and scholars that in reality Hitler expelled or murdered aid in creating an Empire of Freedom that extends from Cardiff to Calcutta. Jewish soldiers in the Wehrmacht reopen synagogues in what had been the Soviet Union.
It's easy to tear down a troll of history. It is far easier to defeat an enemy by ensuring that the Other Side has nothing for which to fight.
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - Bob Butler 54 - 08-18-2017
With Bannon gone, does SNL hold a wake for their undead specter character?
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - David Horn - 08-20-2017
(08-18-2017, 01:54 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: With Bannon gone, does SNL hold a wake for their undead specter character?
No because, like Bannon himself, the specter will merely move a step or two off stage, hiding in the curtains.
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - Eric the Green - 09-16-2017
The shoe's on tha otha fuot naow, Georgie! We da rebel now, and now we get to talk like Georgie!
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - pbrower2a - 09-16-2017
Considering how Republicans are failing to laud the Great and Infallible Leader even in rural parts of Michigan -- we just might be joining states like New York, California, and Michigan. If Wisconsin and Pennsylvania join us -- wonderful!
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - Eric the Green - 10-02-2017
Maybe Trump should visit the hospital, or take up palm reading. He not only tweets, he chirps!
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - Eric the Green - 10-02-2017
Maher Brings on Obama Impersonator to Read Trump Quotes: How Would the GOP Have Reacted?
( at 2:15)
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - Eric the Green - 10-17-2017
Good bash, Eminem!
Eminem set the internet ablaze on Tuesday evening, when BET’s Hip-Hop Awards aired a video of “The Storm,” an anti-Donald Trump freestyle by the rapper. In the five-minute performance, Eminem lobs numerous insults at the president and harshly criticizes him for his positions on issues ranging from international diplomacy to domestic unrest.
The rapper has taken a stand against President Trump before, from an October 2016 “Campaign Speech” where he labeled the politician a “loose canon” to a “f— Trump” chant at August’s Reading Festival in Scotland. But Tuesday’s freestyle contains Eminem’s most detailed critiques of Trump yet. There’s plenty to unpack in his lyrics — below, review them in full.
It’s the calm before the storm right here
Wait, how was I gonna start this off?
I forgot— oh, yeah
That’s an awfully hot coffee pot
Should I drop it on Donald Trump? Probably not
But that’s all I got ’til I come up with a solid plot
Got a plan and now I gotta hatch it
Like a damn Apache with a tomahawk
Imma walk inside a mosque on Ramadan
And say a prayer that every time Melania talks
She gets a mou— Ahh, Imma stop
But we better give Obama props
‘Cause what we got in office now’s a kamikaze
That’ll probably cause a nuclear holocaust
And while the drama pops
And he waits for s— to quiet down, he’ll just gas his plane up and fly around ’til the bombing stops
Intensities heightened, tensions are risin’
Trump, when it comes to giving a s—, you’re stingy as I am
Except when it comes to having the balls to go against me, you hide ’em
‘Cause you don’t got the f—ing nuts, like an empty asylum
Racism’s the only thing he’s fantastic for
‘Cause that’s how he gets his f—ing rocks off and he’s orange
Yeah, sick tan
That’s why he wants us to disband
‘Cause he cannot withstand
The fact we’re not afraid of Trump
F— walkin’ on egg shells, I came to stomp
That’s why he keeps screamin’ ‘Drain the swamp’
‘Cause he’s in quicksand
It’s like we take a step forwards, then backwards
But this is his form of distraction
Plus, he gets an enormous reaction
When he attacks the NFL so we focus on that
Instead of talking Puerto Rico or gun reform for Nevada
All these horrible tragedies and he’s bored and would rather
Cause a Twitter storm with the Packers
Then says he wants to lower our taxes
Then who’s gonna pay for his extravagant trips
Back and forth with his fam to his golf resorts and his mansions?
Same s— that he tormented Hillary for and he slandered
Then does it more
From his endorsement of Bannon
Support for the Klansmen
Tiki torches in hand for the soldier that’s black
And comes home from Iraq
And is still told to go back to Africa
Fork and a dagger in this racist 94-year-old grandpa
Who keeps ignoring our past historical, deplorable factors
Now if you’re a black athlete, you’re a spoiled little brat for
Tryna use your platform or your stature
To try to give those a voice who don’t have one
He says, ‘You’re spittin’ in the face of vets who fought for us, you bastards!’
Unless you’re a POW who’s tortured and battered
‘Cause to him you’re zeros
‘Cause he don’t like his war heroes captured
That’s not disrespecting the military
F— that! This is for Colin, ball up a fist!
And keep that s— balled like Donald the bitch!
‘He’s gonna get rid of all immigrants!’
‘He’s gonna build that thang up taller than this!’
Well, if he does build it, I hope it’s rock solid with bricks
‘Cause like him in politics, I’m using all of his tricks
‘Cause I’m throwin’ that piece of s— against the wall ’til it sticks
And any fan of mine who’s a supporter of his
I’m drawing in the sand a line: you’re either for or against
And if you can’t decide who you like more and you’re split
On who you should stand beside, I’ll do it for you with this:
F— you!
The rest of America, stand up
We love our military, and we love our country
But we f—ing hate Trump
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - pbrower2a - 10-23-2017
I would not be surprised if 90-year-old (is he that old? Yes.) legendary entertainer and civil-rights advocate Harry Belafonte knows something that we don't know about him. He has already had a stroke that messes up his mobility. This is expected to be his last public appearance of any kind.
His final legacy (aside from possible bequests to admirable causes) may be this warning about President Donald Trump:
[/url]
Quote:[url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/03/n-praise-of-harry-belafonte]Harry Belafonteappeared dazed, struggling to stand with a cane as an aide guided him slowly to his place on stage. Having caught his breath, the 90-year-old singer and civil rights activist warned the crowd at Carnegie Music Hall on Friday night that this was probably his last public appearance.
It lasted nearly two hours. Despite appearing disoriented – a stroke a few years ago took away his inner-ear balance – and taking long breaks to gathers his thoughts, Belafonte brought the crowd to rising cheers and chants.
He also made a startling statement. In electing Donald Trump, he said, “the country made a mistake and I think the next mistake might very well be the gas chamber and what happened to Jews [under] Hitler is not too far from our door.”
For the most part, though, Belafonte talked about his life. He recounted how when he was seven his mother, a Jamaican immigrant who worked long days, made him promise he would never let injustice go unchallenged.
“It stayed with me forever,” he said. “Whenever I came upon resistance or opportunities that were not offered to us because of race, because of poverty, I always remembered her counsel, her wish.
“Her counsel had a huge impact. Her tenaciousness, the way in she handled the poverty, the way in which with no skill, she faced a life of endless rejection … I just marveled at the way in which she seemed to endure and from that early experience with her, the mood was set, the tone was set for how my life would be.”
As he spoke of the injustice he endured during the years when Senator Joe McCarthy spread anti-communist repression, Belafonte began to cough and struggled to speak. A man in the audience called to him to take his time. Belafonte paused and caught his breath.
Beginning to relax, to cheers from the audience, he recounted the great pride he felt when The Banana Boat Song, his song about the struggles of the working-class people that raised him, helped an album become the first record to ever sell a million copies. He spoke of how the solidarity of audiences around the world saved him when he was blacklisted in the US, during the years of McCarthyism, when major record labels would no longer cut him deals.
“I found this enormous force called audience and I made sure that everything that I did was given towards instructing them and informing them,” he said. “It was they who came night after night to feel the music of the world that gave me the economic independence that made me not care.”
He spoke of his mentor, Paul Robeson, and learning the lessons of his downfall. He thanked him for introducing him to Eleanor Roosevelt, with whom he traveled in the 1950s, meeting leaders of African independence movements.
He spoke of Pete Seeger and how music brought the spirit of the civil rights movement to great heights. And he spoke of the great fall America had endured by electing Trump.
However, Belafonte said he had come to feel confident that work done by his generation had laid a framework for the revival of American democracy.
“We have achieved a lot in my lifetime,” he said. “Dr King was not about nothing, Eleanor Roosevelt was not about nothing. I think in the final analysis that we shall overcome, because what we did is … we left a harvest that generations to come [will] reap. That they have not yet plowed. That they have not yet harvested.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/21/harry-belafonte-we-shall-overcome-trump
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - Eric the Green - 10-25-2017
Conservative libertarian Senator Jeff Flake of AZ denounces the Trump style of leadership in no uncertain terms in a Senate speech, and refuses to be complicit in it by running for re-election:
http://www.abc15.com/news/state/sen-jeff-flake-resigns-read-full-statement-about-not-seeking-re-election
Mr. President, I rise today to address a matter that has been much on my mind, at a moment when it seems that our democracy is more defined by our discord and our dysfunction than it is by our values and our principles. Let me begin by noting a somewhat obvious point that these offices that we hold are not ours to hold indefinitely. We are not here simply to mark time. Sustained incumbency is certainly not the point of seeking office. And there are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles.
Now is such a time.
It must also be said that I rise today with no small measure of regret. Regret, because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics, regret because of the indecency of our discourse, regret because of the coarseness of our leadership, regret for the compromise of our moral authority, and by our - all of our - complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs. It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end.
In this century, a new phrase has entered the language to describe the accommodation of a new and undesirable order - that phrase being "the new normal." But we must never adjust to the present coarseness of our national dialogue - with the tone set at the top.
We must never regard as "normal" the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country - the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve.
None of these appalling features of our current politics should ever be regarded as normal. We must never allow ourselves to lapse into thinking that this is just the way things are now. If we simply become inured to this condition, thinking that this is just politics as usual, then heaven help us. Without fear of the consequences, and without consideration of the rules of what is politically safe or palatable, we must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal.
Reckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as "telling it like it is," when it is actually just reckless, outrageous, and undignified.
And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else: It is dangerous to a democracy. Such behavior does not project strength - because our strength comes from our values. It instead projects a corruption of the spirit, and weakness.
It is often said that children are watching. Well, they are. And what are we going to do about that?
When the next generation asks us, Why didn't you do something? Why didn't you speak up? -- what are we going to say?
Mr. President, I rise today to say: Enough. We must dedicate ourselves to making sure that the anomalous never becomes normal. With respect and humility, I must say that we have fooled ourselves for long enough that a pivot to governing is right around the corner, a return to civility and stability right behind it. We know better than that. By now, we all know better than that.
Here, today, I stand to say that we would better serve the country and better fulfill our obligations under the constitution by adhering to our Article 1 "old normal" - Mr. Madison's doctrine of the separation of powers. This genius innovation which affirms Madison's status as a true visionary and for which Madison argued in Federalist 51 - held that the equal branches of our government would balance and counteract each other when necessary. "Ambition counteracts ambition," he wrote.
But what happens if ambition fails to counteract ambition? What happens if stability fails to assert itself in the face of chaos and instability? If decency fails to call out indecency? Were the shoe on the other foot, would we Republicans meekly accept such behavior on display from dominant Democrats? Of course not, and we would be wrong if we did.
When we remain silent and fail to act when we know that that silence and inaction is the wrong thing to do - because of political considerations, because we might make enemies, because we might alienate the base, because we might provoke a primary challenge, because ad infinitum, ad nauseam - when we succumb to those considerations in spite of what should be greater considerations and imperatives in defense of the institutions of our liberty, then we dishonor our principles and forsake our obligations. Those things are far more important than politics.
Now, I am aware that more politically savvy people than I caution against such talk. I am aware that a segment of my party believes that anything short of complete and unquestioning loyalty to a president who belongs to my party is unacceptable and suspect.
If I have been critical, it not because I relish criticizing the behavior of the president of the United States. If I have been critical, it is because I believe that it is my obligation to do so, as a matter of duty and conscience. The notion that one should stay silent as the norms and values that keep America strong are undermined and as the alliances and agreements that ensure the stability of the entire world are routinely threatened by the level of thought that goes into 140 characters - the notion that one should say and do nothing in the face of such mercurial behavior is ahistoric and, I believe, profoundly misguided.
A Republican president named Roosevelt had this to say about the president and a citizen's relationship to the office:
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile." President Roosevelt continued. "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
Acting on conscience and principle is the manner in which we express our moral selves, and as such, loyalty to conscience and principle should supersede loyalty to any man or party. We can all be forgiven for failing in that measure from time to time. I certainly put myself at the top of the list of those who fall short in that regard. I am holier-than-none. But too often, we rush not to salvage principle but to forgive and excuse our failures so that we might accommodate them and go right on failing-until the accommodation itself becomes our principle.
In that way and over time, we can justify almost any behavior and sacrifice almost any principle. I'm afraid that is where we now find ourselves.
When a leader correctly identifies real hurt and insecurity in our country and instead of addressing it goes looking for somebody to blame, there is perhaps nothing more devastating to a pluralistic society. Leadership knows that most often a good place to start in assigning blame is to first look somewhat closer to home. Leadership knows where the buck stops. Humility helps. Character counts. Leadership does not knowingly encourage or feed ugly and debased appetites in us.
Leadership lives by the American creed: E Pluribus Unum. From many, one. American leadership looks to the world, and just as Lincoln did, sees the family of man. Humanity is not a zero-sum game. When we have been at our most prosperous, we have also been at our most principled. And when we do well, the rest of the world also does well.
These articles of civic faith have been central to the American identity for as long as we have all been alive. They are our birthright and our obligation. We must guard them jealously, and pass them on for as long as the calendar has days. To betray them, or to be unserious in their defense is a betrayal of the fundamental obligations of American leadership. And to behave as if they don't matter is simply not who we are.
Now, the efficacy of American leadership around the globe has come into question. When the United States emerged from World War II we contributed about half of the world's economic activity. It would have been easy to secure our dominance, keeping the countries that had been defeated or greatly weakened during the war in their place. We didn't do that. It would have been easy to focus inward. We resisted those impulses. Instead, we financed reconstruction of shattered countries and created international organizations and institutions that have helped provide security and foster prosperity around the world for more than 70 years.
Now, it seems that we, the architects of this visionary rules-based world order that has brought so much freedom and prosperity, are the ones most eager to abandon it.
The implications of this abandonment are profound. And the beneficiaries of this rather radical departure in the American approach to the world are the ideological enemies of our values. Despotism loves a vacuum. And our allies are now looking elsewhere for leadership. Why are they doing this? None of this is normal. And what do we as United States Senators have to say about it?
The principles that underlie our politics, the values of our founding, are too vital to our identity and to our survival to allow them to be compromised by the requirements of politics. Because politics can make us silent when we should speak, and silence can equal complicity.
I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit.
I have decided that I will be better able to represent the people of Arizona and to better serve my country and my conscience by freeing myself from the political considerations that consume far too much bandwidth and would cause me to compromise far too many principles.
To that end, I am announcing today that my service in the Senate will conclude at the end of my term in early January 2019.
It is clear at this moment that a traditional conservative who believes in limited government and free markets, who is devoted to free trade, and who is pro-immigration, has a narrower and narrower path to nomination in the Republican party - the party that for so long has defined itself by belief in those things. It is also clear to me for the moment we have given in or given up on those core principles in favor of the more viscerally satisfying anger and resentment. To be clear, the anger and resentment that the people feel at the royal mess we have created are justified. But anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy.
There is an undeniable potency to a populist appeal - but mischaracterizing or misunderstanding our problems and giving in to the impulse to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking people. In the case of the Republican party, those things also threaten to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking minority party.
We were not made great as a country by indulging or even exalting our worst impulses, turning against ourselves, glorying in the things which divide us, and calling fake things true and true things fake. And we did not become the beacon of freedom in the darkest corners of the world by flouting our institutions and failing to understand just how hard-won and vulnerable they are.
This spell will eventually break. That is my belief. We will return to ourselves once more, and I say the sooner the better. Because to have a healthy government we must have healthy and functioning parties. We must respect each other again in an atmosphere of shared facts and shared values, comity and good faith. We must argue our positions fervently, and never be afraid to compromise. We must assume the best of our fellow man, and always look for the good. Until that day comes, we must be unafraid to stand up and speak out as if our country depends on it. Because it does.
I plan to spend the remaining fourteen months of my senate term doing just that.
Mr. President, the graveyard is full of indispensable men and women -- none of us here is indispensable. Nor were even the great figures from history who toiled at these very desks in this very chamber to shape this country that we have inherited. What is indispensable are the values that they consecrated in Philadelphia and in this place, values which have endured and will endure for so long as men and women wish to remain free. What is indispensable is what we do here in defense of those values. A political career doesn't mean much if we are complicit in undermining those values.
I thank my colleagues for indulging me here today, and will close by borrowing the words of President Lincoln, who knew more about healing enmity and preserving our founding values than any other American who has ever lived. His words from his first inaugural were a prayer in his time, and are no less so in ours:
"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - Galen - 10-25-2017
(10-25-2017, 12:14 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Conservative libertarian Senator Jeff Flake of AZ denounces the Trump style of leadership in no uncertain terms in a Senate speech, and refuses to be complicit in it by running for re-election:
http://www.abc15.com/news/state/sen-jeff-flake-resigns-read-full-statement-about-not-seeking-re-election
Flake is about as widely hated among the R's as McConnel and Ryan are these days. He was going to lose the primary. If you had a clue about what is going on among the R's you would realize that the Republican Establishment has been at war with its base for decades. It seems that only the Dims are mourning the the loss of this loser.
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - pbrower2a - 10-25-2017
(10-25-2017, 02:18 AM)Galen Wrote:(10-25-2017, 12:14 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Conservative libertarian Senator Jeff Flake of AZ denounces the Trump style of leadership in no uncertain terms in a Senate speech, and refuses to be complicit in it by running for re-election:
http://www.abc15.com/news/state/sen-jeff-flake-resigns-read-full-statement-about-not-seeking-re-election
Flake is about as widely hated among the R's as McConnel and Ryan are these days. He was going to lose the primary. If you had a clue about what is going on among the R's you would realize that the Republican Establishment has been at war with its base for decades. It seems that only the Dims are mourning the the loss of this loser.
Flake barely won election in 2012, and Arizona is drifting D. Donald Trump barely won the state in 2016, the demographics becoming increasingly unsympathetic to Republicans of all kinds.
I saw the transcript of the speech. This shows something rare in American politics within at least the GOP -- principle. Like Corker he seems to be putting his country and its democratic heritage above partisan advantage and perhaps re-election.
Democracy depends upon elected officials being willing to lose elections and upon give-and-take with the opposition. Donald Trump acts more like a dictator than has any prior President acted -- and by a huge margin.
Open seats are usually much more vulnerable than those involving an incumbent with no obvious scandals Neither Corker nor Trump had any apparent scandal. Now, I am not saying that Democrats will win the seat that either Senator holds... at least not yet. Arizona is very shaky "R", and Tennessee is one of the most R-friendly states in America at this time.
America lost badly by electing Donald Trump.
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - David Horn - 10-25-2017
(10-25-2017, 02:18 AM)Galen Wrote:(10-25-2017, 12:14 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Conservative libertarian Senator Jeff Flake of AZ denounces the Trump style of leadership in no uncertain terms in a Senate speech, and refuses to be complicit in it by running for re-election:
http://www.abc15.com/news/state/sen-jeff-flake-resigns-read-full-statement-about-not-seeking-re-election
Flake is about as widely hated among the R's as McConnel and Ryan are these days. He was going to lose the primary. If you had a clue about what is going on among the R's you would realize that the Republican Establishment has been at war with its base for decades. It seems that only the Dims are mourning the the loss of this loser.
Since Flake is one of those solidly conservative members who happens to abhor what Trump is doing, which of those aspects has put him in the GOP dog house? Is GOP = Trump now., or is the party base moving somewhere else?
RE: Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can! - pbrower2a - 10-25-2017
The totalitarian playbook is as such: first, eliminate or control the opposition so that your clique has an effective monopoly on power. Then you purge your own clique of those people that you ascertain are inadequately loyal to Your Magnificence.
Trump has started with Step 2.