What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[11B4V]

Holy shit, all the Russian stooges in the media are out in force prepping the ground for Mueller's firing, as well as pushing the "now we know who really colluded with Russia" story.  These people are rotten beyond belief.

Putin is laughing his ass off. He may very well have tinkered, meddled, or what have you, but it has takin' on a life of its own.

[DGuller]

Holy shit, all the Russian stooges in the media are out in force prepping the ground for Mueller's firing, as well as pushing the "now we know who really colluded with Russia" story.  These people are rotten beyond belief.

Putin is laughing his ass off. He may very well have tinkered, meddled, or what have you, but it has takin' on a life of its own.

It had a life of its own to begin with.  Putin deserves a lot of credit for figuring out how to weaponize the Internet, and turn it from a tool of enlightenment to a tool of darkness.  However, the right wing has waged a political total war in the US long before anyone explained to Putin what Internet is.  He just tipped the precarious balance in the favor of authoritarianism at the right time.

[Tonitrus]

He's getting what he wants.  Political and economic disorder in the West.

[sbr]

Holy shit, all the Russian stooges in the media are out in force prepping the ground for Mueller's firing, as well as pushing the "now we know who really colluded with Russia" story.  These people are rotten beyond belief.

Putin is laughing his ass off. He may very well have tinkered, meddled, or what have you, but it has takin' on a life of its own.

It had a life of its own to begin with.  Putin deserves a lot of credit for figuring out how to weaponize the Internet, and turn it from a tool of enlightenment to a tool of darkness.  However, the right wing has waged a political total war in the US long before anyone explained to Putin what Internet is.  He just tipped the precarious balance in the favor of authoritarianism at the right time.

Yep.  If anything Putin weaponized the general American public's stupidity.

[Admiral Yi]

And very unfortunately, that leaves us gringos in a position of deciding how to cope with living in a superpower in which the plurality of voters are deep retards.

[dps]

And very unfortunately, that leaves us gringos in a position of deciding how to cope with living in a superpower in which the plurality of voters are deep retards.

It's not a plurality I'm afraid;  it's a majority.  No, I'm not spouting some tin-foil conspiracy BS that President Trump actually got a majority of the popular vote;  I'm saying that if the majority of voters weren't idiots, no major party would have ever nominated Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton for President.

[garbon]

And very unfortunately, that leaves us gringos in a position of deciding how to cope with living in a superpower in which the plurality of voters are deep retards.

It's not a plurality I'm afraid;  it's a majority.  No, I'm not spouting some tin-foil conspiracy BS that President Trump actually got a majority of the popular vote;  I'm saying that if the majority of voters weren't idiots, no major party would have ever nominated Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton for President.

[Jacob]

And very unfortunately, that leaves us gringos in a position of deciding how to cope with living in a superpower in which the plurality of voters are deep retards.

It's not a plurality I'm afraid;  it's a majority.  No, I'm not spouting some tin-foil conspiracy BS that President Trump actually got a majority of the popular vote;  I'm saying that if the majority of voters weren't idiots, no major party would have ever nominated Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton for President.

That statement puts you in the idiot category

[DGuller]

And very unfortunately, that leaves us gringos in a position of deciding how to cope with living in a superpower in which the plurality of voters are deep retards.

It's not a plurality I'm afraid;  it's a majority.  No, I'm not spouting some tin-foil conspiracy BS that President Trump actually got a majority of the popular vote;  I'm saying that if the majority of voters weren't idiots, no major party would have ever nominated Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton for President.

Utter nonsense.  I realize that some conservatives and most independents are using Hillary to clear their conscience for the political disaster they caused or enabled, but that bullshit won't fly.  There can be no equivalence between a flawed candidate and a Quisling.

[garbon]

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump  17h17 hours ago
JFK Files are released, long ahead of schedule!

I don't get why he has to lie about things that are so easily verified to be not true. Just about every outlet noted that the files were being released at the deadline set 25 years ago and that Trump held back on some of the files.

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump  2h2 hours ago
All of this "Russia" talk right when the Republicans are making their big push for historic Tax Cuts & Reform. Is this coincidental? NOT!

Perhaps Donald and his camp should spend less time talking about Russia then?

[saskganesh]

I know I'll regret saying this, but Trump was pretty good talking about his brother's struggle with alcohol and his influence on Trump.

Well, Freddy grew up in a family of monsters. Of course he drank.

[CountDeMoney]

And very unfortunately, that leaves us gringos in a position of deciding how to cope with living in a superpower in which the plurality of voters are deep retards.

It's not a plurality I'm afraid;  it's a majority.  No, I'm not spouting some tin-foil conspiracy BS that President Trump actually got a majority of the popular vote;  I'm saying that if the majority of voters weren't idiots, no major party would have ever nominated Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton for President.

That statement puts you in the idiot category

They still love to make that lesser of two evils rationalization, don't they.  "Yeah, Trump is bad too, but at least we got rid of that filthy fucking cooze and her fag/nigger/Jew/immigrant/union demographic first, right?"

Unfortunately, no other argument can be made by conservatives other than racism and misogyny.  Fiscal conservatism?  Lies.  American-centered foreign policy?  Lies.  Drain the swamp?  Lies.
In the end, it simply comes down to avenging 8 years of a black guy in the White House and avoiding 4 years of a woman in the White House, that's all.  Because if anything unites the American voter, it's hatred of coons and cunts.  At least they're more open about it nowadays.

[grumbler]

Hillary wasn't even the second-worst candidate in the last 2 election cycles.

[CountDeMoney]

This Is What the Trump Abyss Looks Like
By Andrew Sullivan
October 27, 2017 9:35 am

The past week was another watershed, it seems to me, in the rising power of Donald Trump. Flake is quitting; Corker is retiring; McCain is mortal. Sasse, Murkowski, Collins, and Paul remain, but the odds are mounting against them. A new slew of Bannonite candidates is emerging from under various rocks and crannies to take their places. The Trump propaganda machine was given a chance to turn the Russia story into a Clinton scandal - lowering even further the possibility of impeachment - and gleefully took it. The FBI is the next target for a barrage of hostile propaganda, since it might expose the Supreme Leader. Mueller is being daily savaged in the right wing press. Outside Washington, Trump's targets are faltering. The NFL is reeling; a Gold Star widow is attacked; Obamacare is at risk of being sabotaged to death; the EPA is castrated.

This time last year, I warned about an abyss. This is what it looks like.

The Congress is paralyzed, reduced entirely to staffing the judiciary with the far right; it can pass no significant legislation and reach no compromise on anything, without Trump undermining it. The bureaucracy is shell-shocked and demoralized; the State Department is a wasteland; the press has sunk even further into public disdain. The police are increasingly seen either as incapable of error, or morally suspect. The essential civilian control of the military has been weakened, with an embittered general's honor now deployed as a way to play political defense in front of the press corps. "My generals", as the president calls them, as if they swear loyalty to him and not to the Constitution. The Republican candidate for the Senate from Alabama, Roy Moore, believes that there should be a religious test for public office. As Ben Sasse blurted out yesterday: "It feels like this party I'm a member of has gone post-Constitutional."

The discourse has been coarsened to sub-tabloid levels; the courts' authority has been weakened by their own over-reach and Trump's refusal to follow core Constitutional norms. The neutral institutions that might be capable of bringing the president to heel, such as the FBI, are now being trashed by their ultimate boss. The possibility of a shared truth, about which we can have differing opinions, has evaporated in a blizzard of web-fueled distraction and misdirection, aided and abetted by a president for whom reality is whatever he wants it to be at any given moment, and always susceptible to change. It turns out that Mark Zuckerberg's real achievement will be the collapse of a rational public dialogue and the empowerment of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Almost all our liberal democratic norms and institutions are much weaker today than they were a year ago. Trump has not assaulted the Constitution directly. He has not refused a court order, so far. But he has obstructed justice in his firing of James Comey, and abused the spirit of the pardon power by using it for a public official who violated citizens' Constitutional rights, before he was even sentenced. In the most worrying case so far, he has refused to enforce the sanctions against Russia that were passed by a veto-proof margin by the Congress. I fear this is because his psyche cannot actually follow the instructions of anyone but himself. This is also why, after failing to repeal, replace or amend Obamacare, he has not faithfully executed the law, but actively sabotaged it. If he does not have his way, he will either sulk and refuse to do his constitutional duty, or he will simply smash whatever institution or law that obstructs his will. At some point, we may come to a more profound test of his ability to operate as just one of three equal branches of government. I think he'll fail it.

Yes, the forms of the Constitution remain largely intact after nine months. But the norms that make the Constitution work are crumbling. The structure looks the same, but Trump has relentlessly attacked their foundations. Do not therefore keep your eyes on the surface. Put your ear to the ground.

And we know something after a year of this. It will go on. This is not a function of strategy or what we might ordinarily describe as will. It is because this president is so psychologically disordered he cannot behave in any other way. His emotions control his mind; his narcissism overwhelms even basic self-interest, let alone the interest of the country as a whole. He cannot unite the country, even if, somewhere in his fathomless vanity, he wants to. And he cannot stop this manic defense of ego because if he did, his very self would collapse. This is why he lies and why he cannot admit a single one of them. He is psychologically incapable of accepting that he could be wrong and someone else could be right. His impulse - which he cannot control - is simply to assault the person who points out the error, or blame someone else for it. Remember his excruciating pre-election admission that his foul racist lies about Obama's birthplace originated with Hillary Clinton? That's as good as you'll get and it's the only concession to reality he has made so far. And do not underestimate the stamina of the psychologically unwell. They will exhaust you long before they will ever exhaust themselves.

But by far the most important development in all this, the single essential rampart, is how, through all this, Trump has tightened his grip on 35 percent of the country. He has done this when he has succeeded but also critically when he has failed, because he has brilliantly turned his incapacity to be president into an asset with his base. No wall? Congress' fault. Obamacare in place? The GOP's fault. No tax cut? Ditto. The only way forward? A deeper and deeper trust in him. Only he can fix the Congress by purging it. Only he can fix the Courts through nominees who will never stand up to him.

And this base support is unshakable. It is not susceptible to reason. No scandal, however great, will dislodge it - because he has invaded his followers' minds and psyches as profoundly as he has the rest of ours. He is fused with them more deeply now, a single raging id, a force that helps us understand better how civilized countries can descend so quickly into barbarism. In a country led by a swirling void, all sorts of inhibitions slowly slip away. Nativism, racism, nationalism: these are very potent catalysts of human darkness. Usually it is the president who takes responsibility when these demons appear to emerge, and attempts to refute, or discredit or calm them. But this one amps them up. That is why we have the astonishing scenario of his two predecessors trying to do what he cannot. They know the fire he is playing with. And they have some sense of responsibility. He has absolutely none.

He is the total master of an enormous mob that, so far, has completely overcome the elites. He achieves this mastery through incendiary oratory, hourly provocations, and relentless propaganda. His rallies are events of mass hysteria and rage. His propaganda machines - Fox News, Limbaugh, Breitbart, Drudge - rarely crack. And there is no one in our political life capable of matching this power. Name one, if you can. And when you look at the Democratic field of 2020, no one seems up to it at all. Among the few responsible Republicans left, what we see is either utter cowardice in the face of an enraged base, or the kind of courage that manifests itself too late to make a difference, which is to say no real courage at all. There are a few exceptions: Senators Collins and Murkowski in particular, doggedly playing their Constitutional roles and not quitting. The rest? The only thing we have to slow this assault is already Congressional roadkill.

What could change this? Maybe a recession - although Trump would probably blame that on the Fed or some other target. Maybe a catastrophe, such as a nuclear conflict in Korea. Maybe, such a massive and impregnable revelation from the Mueller investigation it shakes even the base out of its trance. But the only reliable and sane solution is a massive mobilization of the anti-Trump majority at the polls next year. The huge Democratic fundraising advantage is encouraging; as are the new grass roots organizations that are going in strength. Maybe an unexpected leader from the left or center might emerge. Maybe a strong Democratic message that can somehow keep its minority edge and simultaneously re-engage the white Obama-Trump voters in the midwest. The key is to sustain a sense of the urgency of the moment, a resolute refusal to accept this descent into an illiberal authoritarianism, and a decision to put all our differences aside for a year in order to mobilize a turnout next year that eclipses Obama's. We have to turn the mid-terms into a presidential election. Sane Republicans need to vote for the Democrat. Leftists have to put aside their divisive identity politics. Liberals need to coalesce around a simple strategy - not impeaching but checking Trump decisively.

We have close to 60 percent of the country with us. We have to mobilize every single one. Or the abyss will open wider.

[11B4V]

Yip and it don't mean shit until the GOP finds its courage.