What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[celedhring]

I don't see the UK parties on there. Did they Brexit from the analysis?

Labour is 2 - 3.5, Tories 6 - 6

There are a couple of major Spanish parties missing (can't find Cs or PSOE). There's a bunch of untagged circles in the chart, so I guess these are the missing parties.

What's the source, Larchie?

[Sheilbh]

I find it interesting how close the Tories and the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan are - probably the two most dominant and establishment parties in the democratic world.

[HisMajestyBOB]

I don't see the UK parties on there. Did they Brexit from the analysis?

Labour is 2 - 3.5, Tories 6 - 6

There are a couple of major Spanish parties missing (can't find Cs or PSOE). There's a bunch of untagged circles in the chart, so I guess these are the missing parties.

What's the source, Larchie?

Ah. I was looking for "UK", not "GBR".

[celedhring]

Nobody cares about Northern Ireland anymore 

[Sheilbh]

Nobody cares about Northern Ireland anymore 

I think regularly about how the DUP came out of the 2017 election with the most power in UK politics a unionist party has had since the 70s. They had the government depending on it, they got lots of extra money and then they were instrumental in scuppering May's deal, getting rid of May and then accidentally ending up with a border in the Irish sea. I cannot think of a a bigger example of a political own goal by a party. It's just mindblowing and hilarious.

There was a story in last week or so that the DUP have now come round to thinking May's Northern Ireland Protocol may have been an acceptable solution. Reminds me of the old Seamus Mallon line at unionists and Sinn Fein that the Good Friday Agreement was basically the Sunningdale Agreement (1973) for slow learners

[The Minsky Moment]

The light wood and gold set off his hair delightfully.

And once again - he looks like being in a church causes him physical pain.

Cue suspenseful creepy music/Carmina Burana

[Valmy]

Why does it look like an orthodox church?

Eastern Rite? I am not sure.

[The Larch]

What's the source, Larchie?

Don't know, I saw it on Twitter this morning, can't remember the person who posted it, but there's a link in the graph.

[Sheilbh]

And once again - he looks like being in a church causes him physical pain.

Cue suspenseful creepy music/Carmina Burana

This visit has caused a bit of a brouhaha in American catholicism. There is a wing which is, I'd argue, culture warriors and Republicans first and Catholics second - this is the wing that has big issues with Pope Francis, kicked off massively when Obama visited Notre Dame especially. At it's most confrontational you have the Knights of Columbus (whose shrine this is) which is lead by someone who started their career working for Jesse Helm or the Catholic Vote who accused the Archbishop of "politicising" a visit by the President (), but you have softer versions like Cardinal Dolan. The fact that it was on the feast of Christ the King feels deliberate as that feast tends to be an obsession with the traditionalist wing of Catholicism from the integralists down who have provided a lot of the intellectual firepower of the right over the last few years (how many recent GOP picks for SCOTUS have been Catholic now?).

On the other hand you have a sort of less political, more in line with Francis wing - which tends to have spoken out about Trump especially on immigration etc. I'd say with this wing you've got Wilton (first African-American Archbishop of DC) and Cardinal O'Casey. There's a big fight between these wings that is always ongoing, but it was rare to see it quite so publicly over this and the response of different figures in the hierarachy - bishop of El Paso has been joining the protests and taking a knee, while Cardinal Dolan did a video yesterday on how JPII wasn't interested in "political revolution" but "spiritual revolution" which, at this point seems a deliberately misleading take on JPII.

It sort of feels like what's been said quitely in sedate letters to their congregants is now public.

Eastern Rite? I am not sure.

Loads of Catholic Churches look like that. There's some architectural features that are a clear division between Eastern and Western churches, but in terms of interiors there's a lot of borrowing by the West (eg San Marco etc are part of the Catholic heritage - just as much as the Gothic, Romanesque, Baroque, Modernist etc). See, for example, the Lady Chapel of Westminster Cathedral:

[Oexmelin]

The JPII shrine was decorated by a Slovenian Jesuit associated with the Congregation for Oriental Churches in Rome.

[Syt]

[crazy canuck]

Well he is not wrong, he has mobilized the Black vote like no other person could have.  He will also be the catalyst for change like no other US president - just not in the way he and Republicans think.

[Eddie Teach]

I'm pretty sure Barack had higher black turnout.

[Admiral Yi]

That is not out of Trump's normal play book.  He usually tells people who are angry with him to fuck off.  This is getting close to pleading for understanding and sympathy.  I don't think it will work well.

The interesting thing is that this whole thing didn't necessarily have to be about Trump until he made it about Trump.

[crazy canuck]

I'm pretty sure Barack had higher black turnout.

Than an election that has not yet happened?