Thought for the Day

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

President not need smart. President need strong. Advisors need smart.

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One of his advisers was Jared Kushner, a nepotism case at both Harvard and NYU Law who wasn't even smart enough to keep his mouth shut in class. I know someone who went to NYU Law with Jared and at the time said Jared was the dumbest student in his class. Yes this is an anecdote but my friend could be one of several hundred people who thought the same thing. His attorney is Rudy Giuliani who wears shoe polish on his sideburns.

But why do you think Trump is strong? Not physically. Not by determination, work ethic, character or anything else. He's an asswipe with poor judgment.

Nothing you said about Joe Biden being a dictator made sense. Trump was the person trying to overturn an election he lost. Trump tried to use the DOJ to settle scores and let his friends off the hook. What is it you think autocracy is?

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Originally Posted by broncofan

I agree with what you're saying but I'm not even sure "to those attuned to it" is necessary because he can be very clumsy and obvious.

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You are right. The real issue is that most Republicans are so willing to rationalise and minimise what he says and does, which is what enables him. All the 'respectable' Republicans want is a few words to give them an out, no matter how clumsy or inconsistent with the rest of the message. "See, he wasn't encouraging a riot because he said the word peaceful once." "He told the Proud Boys to stand down." "He's not encouraging white supremacists because he criticised both sides at Charlottesville." "He's not a racist because he said so and he's friends with Kanye West."

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Originally Posted by broncofan

But why do you think Trump is strong? Not physically. Not by determination, work ethic, character or anything else. He's an asswipe with poor judgment.

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He was acting out the cartoon version of the strong leader, which is all the people like Nick want. Look at the counter-examples. He was obviously the beta dog with Putin. He made a soft deal with the Taliban just to get out of Afghanistan. He let Kim Jong Un play him like a violin for the sake of a meaningless photo op. He never met a dictator he didn't praise admiringly.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

You somehow missed the fact that Trump didn't listen to any advice that went against his impulses, at least not for very long. Everyone who tried to tell him what he didn't want to hear got sacked, and in the end he was surrounded by yes people.

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Trump's impulses are awesome. Grabbing the liberal media by the pussy, insulting nicknames for his political opponents, shamelessly stacking the SCOTUS with hard right assholes, hourly tweets watching Fox News, all done on the fly. Space Force? The Wall? Doing nothing about Covid? He had to have pulled those right out of his ass. Glorious.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

You are overlooking one obvious key point. Trump clearly believed that Mike Pence could and should have used his position to refuse to certify the state election results. In that case I understand it would have come down to a state-by-state vote in Congress, which would have given Republicans a small majority. So there was a possible quasi-legal route to overturn the election outcome if all Republicans had gone along with it.

Trump clearly wanted to fire up his supporters to put pressure on Pence and other Republicans in Congress. As he's a sociopath I doubt he cared how it was done. As you say, he knows enough to say the right words to create a veneer of deniability, but he also knows how to make the signal clear to those attuned to it.

Your argument that it was a spontaneous riot is a risible piece of revisionism that requires us to ignore all the people who turned up with various weapons and other suitable gear, as well as all the internet chatter before the event. Again, if it's true then why are the Trumpists so desperate to block any investigation?

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Hey Flighty, just because I don't believe the election was fraudulent doesn't mean I don't believe Trump believes the election was fraudulent. He believes it, and acted accordingly. And what liberals don't understand about Trump supporters is, it's not a cult of personality. It's a cult of people who hate progressives with every fiber. That's the real tie that binds. You can't blame Trump because your people are so obnoxiously retarded that Trump's people want to literally kill them and obliterate their taint from the gene pool. I know you live in your liberal echo chamber and don't know what the adults talk about, but I'll enlighten you that most of my friends think any support for the progressive agenda qualifies for death by chainsaw. And they all want to be the one holding the saw.

Blocking (i.e., "prolonging until we get Congress back in exactly 14 months") the investigation is a no-brainer. The investigation can't be trusted, it's a political witch hunt.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

One of his advisers was Jared Kushner, a nepotism case at both Harvard and NYU Law who wasn't even smart enough to keep his mouth shut in class. I know someone who went to NYU Law with Jared and at the time said Jared was the dumbest student in his class. Yes this is an anecdote but my friend could be one of several hundred people who thought the same thing. His attorney is Rudy Giuliani who wears shoe polish on his sideburns.

But why do you think Trump is strong? Not physically. Not by determination, work ethic, character or anything else. He's an asswipe with poor judgment.

Nothing you said about Joe Biden being a dictator made sense. Trump was the person trying to overturn an election he lost. Trump tried to use the DOJ to settle scores and let his friends off the hook. What is it you think autocracy is?

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You don't really believe Trump took advice from his 30-something son-in-law do you Bronco? I mean, sure, give the kid a living, but Jesus man, no, just no.

Corey Lewandowski was the secret weapon behind the successful 2016 campaign. Paul Manafort is no dummy and neither is Roger Stone. Sam Clovis and Steve Bannon, both very savvy. George Papadapoulos is fantastic on foreign policy and Keith Kellogg is a military genius.

As for why I think Trump is strong, I guess it goes to different interpretations of what comprises leadership. Nobody's got all or even most of the answers, but you sit a handful of politically-savvy guys down in a room, and you can work out the best solution to a problem. Who's going to pull the trigger though? Then who's going to bask in the glory if it goes right, or take the heat if it goes wrong?

Say what you want to about Donald Trump but the man is an absolute prodigy when it comes to being the business end of a policy decision. He WILL get your attention - I mean hell, he's still got yours, Bronco, and Flighty's, and I'm starting to think Stavros has an actual man-crush on the dude. And he hasn't been President in nearly a year. Put him on a podium and people can't take their eyes off of him - EVEN IF ONLY BECAUSE THEY'RE ANTICIPATING A TRAINWRECK. That's strong. That's leadership.

Oh yeah, autocracy. Autocracy = Vaccine Mandate, FBI vs Parents, and shitting on the will of the majority in favor of your party's agenda to line their own pockets with tax dollars.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

He was acting out the cartoon version of the strong leader, which is all the people like Nick want. Look at the counter-examples. He was obviously the beta dog with Putin. He made a soft deal with the Taliban just to get out of Afghanistan. He let Kim Jong Un play him like a violin for the sake of a meaningless photo op. He never met a dictator he didn't praise admiringly.

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Goddamn I wish Putin was an American, I'd vote for him in a heartbeat. Then we'd never have to vote again. :)

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Originally Posted by filghy2

He was acting out the cartoon version of the strong leader, which is all the people like Nick want. Look at the counter-examples. He was obviously the beta dog with Putin. He made a soft deal with the Taliban just to get out of Afghanistan. He let Kim Jong Un play him like a violin for the sake of a meaningless photo op. He never met a dictator he didn't praise admiringly.

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I am not sure Trump can be described as a 'strong leader', mainly because he did not know how to lead, and never did. I have no particular interest in the man, as there is nothing there, but consider his importance to lie in the extent to which people with their own agenda -for the most part opposed to Liberal Democracy, the Constitution and the Separation of Powers- saw Trump as the tool they needed to break up a country they have come to detest. Trump is so naturally incompetent it was always clear he had no idea what a President does, or should do, and as a man with zero curiosity about the world in which he lives, he was never going to learn on the job. Moreover, because he is incapable of believing anyone is more intelligent than himself, he chose as advisers people who owed their position to their willingness to agree with him on everything -just as those who did not did not last long before being sacked.

One of the most noticable aspects of Trump's personality, is his cowardice. Incapable of summoning the courage to tell a member of staff they are fired, he usually waited until they were out of the office, even better out of DC before sacking them by tweet. If you add in John Bolton's description of the crisis with Iran that followed the assassination of Qasem Sulaimani and the murder of American troops in Iraq, Trump's cowardice makes him incapable of being Commander-in-Chief, just one more reason to describe him as the weakest, and most ineffective President since Gerald Ford, which is not much of a judgment on Ford who was on a hiding to nothing when he took over from Nixon for two miserable years.

It is because Trump's supporters are so determined to transform the US, in some of its parts, into a One-Party Dictatorship that one can predict the end of the USA if this corrupt, mendacious credit is again selected for power by the Electoral College.

Archie Brown has looked at this issue in depth and is always a good read.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...e-brown-review

"this corrupt, mendacious credit"...obviously I meant to use the word Cretin. I was doing two things at once hence the error.

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Originally Posted by Stavros

I was doing two things at once hence the error.

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Talking about Trump makes you horny, Stavros, why won't you just admit it?

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

Trump's impulses are awesome. Grabbing the liberal media by the pussy, insulting nicknames for his political opponents, shamelessly stacking the SCOTUS with hard right assholes, hourly tweets watching Fox News, all done on the fly. Space Force? The Wall? Doing nothing about Covid? He had to have pulled those right out of his ass. Glorious.

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I don't deny he has a great instinct for what appeals to ignorant arseholes, which is his only real talent. Did you get a hard-on when he made that speech about Latino immigrants being criminals and rapists?

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

And what liberals don't understand about Trump supporters is, it's not a cult of personality. It's a cult of people who hate progressives with every fiber. That's the real tie that binds. You can't blame Trump because your people are so obnoxiously retarded that Trump's people want to literally kill them and obliterate their taint from the gene pool.

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Sounds exactly like Nazism. Do you actually think about what you write, or do you just upload your stream of consciousness unfiltered?

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Originally Posted by Stavros

I am not sure Trump can be described as a 'strong leader', mainly because he did not know how to lead, and never did.

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Teddy Roosevelt's motto was "Speak softly and carry a big stick". Trump's must have been the opposite. Everything he did internationally was big talk with not much follow up. All he really wanted was get some kind of deal he could spin as a great win, regardless of the substance.