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Trump Watch

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Taylor

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Re: Trump Watch

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I condemn all violence. “Blind Violence” does not discriminate, Aii violence is targeted typically at the innocent. Violence begets Violence. PSfB was never going to win a second term in a landslide, PSfB has been his own undoing since his inauguration.
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Re: Trump Watch

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ant wrote:
DWill wrote:]I disagree strongly that the argument over who should lead reduces to one side's ad hominem vs. the other's, as if there can never be any difference on the merits, because "it's all just politics."
I don't think you meant to mischaraterize what I wrote, but you mischaracterized what I wrote.
I simply said character assassination has been a part of the body politic for decades and decades. That is simply a fact, nothing more.
It was not an attempt at justification.

One side crying foul is also the side that practices character assassination of their own --- F A C T (and you know it)

I am not shocked when it happens and frankly neither should you be.
I'm sorry, ant, but this says to me that because politics is politics, criticism of leaders of each side is nothing more than character assassination, so that there's never anything valid about the criticism, or one criticism cancels out the other. I don't believe that can be true as an axiom. I certainly don't think criticism of Trump is character assassination, and you say yourself that you don't generally support him. I didn't think criticism of Obama was character assassination, for the most part (excepting things like birtherism). It's not hard to tell the difference between c.a. and substantive criticisms.
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ant wrote:
DWill wrote:You say you don't defend him, either, but continually minimizing his outrages
SHOW ME WHERE I have "minimized" a particular action he has taken.
Excusing his lies with "all politicians lie," and saying that what Democrats object to is his "oratory," covers a lot of ground, encompasses a lot of Trump's outrages. Off the top of my head, I recall you downplaying Trump's brainstorm of using bleach and light internally to cure covid-19. I think there have been others. I don't see why you bristle at being told you defend Trump; it's not that every conceivable criticism of him can be valid. I've defended him a few times myself.
ant wrote:
DWill wrote:Calling Biden a racist allows negating the much more plausible charge of Trump's racism.
It allows nothing but my expression as a minority that Biden is a racist.. perhaps a closet racist at best. I'm likely to believe that he is so ossified in 50s, 6os, 70s racism that he can't help what he is - a man not able to adjust to a new era.

I am a person of color.. Why is it that I am not as offended by Trump as most white men seem to be"
So Biden, who served 8 years under a black president is a racist, but Trump must not be, because you don't feel very offended by him? Something is not adding up here. I couldn't possibly say why you don't feel as offended as some white men seem to be by Trump's many bigoted actions and statements. It usually has something to do with priorities, doesn't it?--we accept some negatives because we find positives that in our minds outweigh them. And if you are not offended by Trump, why was it that you thought you could assume that black people were offended by Biden's "you ain't black" crack?
I do not need a white man to take offense for me where none was taken. And I refuse to be used as a mascot, not will I be told by a white man that I should take offense to some of the stupid things Trump has done (eg eating a taco salad to win over the latino vote)
Two words - virtue signaling.
Are you going to argue that virtue signaling is virtuous?
Please do.
I would not have thought of your example of taco eating as anything to get excited about, anyway. No, there are much better things about Trump to be offended by.
False.
There has been an uproar over Biden's "touchiness" by people that you dismiss as not having anything valid to be upset about as it relates to the aforementioned.

I'm not a person?
Countless people (who coincidentally may not share the same political views as you) are not people?
I mean an uproar: a large, sustained condemnation of that behavior, over the years and not just in this moment by some people.
ant wrote:
DWill wrote:If it's not your conscious intent, the effect is to achieve just that
This alleged effect you are suggesting I am intentionally or otherwise creating exists in your mind.
You should not be projecting that onto mine.
OK, fair enough. In my mind, the effect of the content and tenor of your talk regarding Trump amounts to defense of him.
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DWill

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Re: Trump Watch

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ant wrote: Putting aside all the controversy and criticism this president has experienced, and I am of the opinion there is a lot to flesh out, I predict this one act is his undoing.
Just to be sure I'm not misunderstanding: are you saying that this Bible-holding stunt is Trump's undoing, or is it the event surrounding the stunt that you say will bring him down?
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Re: Trump Watch

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ant wrote:, not will I be told by a white man that I should take offense to some of the stupid things Trump has done (eg eating a taco salad to win over the latino vote)
Two words - virtue signaling.
Are you going to argue that virtue signaling is virtuous?
Please do.
Oh, absolutely. Virtue signalling is not as good as actions to address a need, but it is, in itself, virtuous.

Think about the opposite: wearing an armband with a swastika. That is obviously signalling something, and it is obviously heinous. Why? because of what it signals.

We children of the Enlightenment have lost sight of the fact that reinforcing good values is a necessity. We called it "conformity" in the Sixties, and so it often was, but it makes a huge difference what people conform to. Now we have concepts like "Social Capital" and "Community" to put a more intentional, less conformist, facade on it. But it still matters.

I think what you (and most of the young people raised in college classes critical of distinctions based in race, gender and class) have in mind is something like "hypocrisy is a tribute vice pays to virtue," (attributed to La Rochefoucauld). This captures the potential fakery involved in virtue signalling. But consider: a tribute is what a dominant power exacts from lesser powers. If virtue is strong enough to exact signalling even from those who are not truly committed to it, that is still a good thing.

So I am fine with noting the falseness of virtue signalling, and maybe even quantifying it - there is something more false about Trump at a prayer breakfast than about Biden telling Clarence Thomas (implicitly) "you ain't black". But if you ask if virtue signalling is in itself virtuous, I have to say yes. On the scale of shades of grey, it may very well be far less virtuous than what it is trying to signal, but it is still pointing in the right direction.
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Re: Trump Watch

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DWill wrote:
ant wrote: Putting aside all the controversy and criticism this president has experienced, and I am of the opinion there is a lot to flesh out, I predict this one act is his undoing.
Just to be sure I'm not misunderstanding: are you saying that this Bible-holding stunt is Trump's undoing, or is it the event surrounding the stunt that you say will bring him down?

Bible holding stunt
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Re: Trump Watch

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ant wrote:
DWill wrote:
ant wrote: Putting aside all the controversy and criticism this president has experienced, and I am of the opinion there is a lot to flesh out, I predict this one act is his undoing.
Just to be sure I'm not misunderstanding: are you saying that this Bible-holding stunt is Trump's undoing, or is it the event surrounding the stunt that you say will bring him down?

Bible holding stunt
I have a different bet, which is that the Bible photo op is just something Trump did to communicate with an important part of his base. The awkward gesture was widely panned, of course, but it was a straw that didn't break the camel's back. My bet is that the event around the photo op has broken new ground in a troublesome way for Trump. The perception--I think borne out by the facts--is that the protests in Lafayette Square were largely peaceful, meaning scattered violence of bottle-throwing, probably. The orders police and Guard were given weren't proportional to the resistance they encountered. They gassed the crowd and fired rubber bullets. As he walked through the parted crowd towards St. Johns Church, Trump was followed by Sec'y of Defense Esper and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, in combat fatigues. That sight is what compelled former Defense Sec'y Jim Mattis to write his now-famous piece in The Atlantic, calling Trump a threat to the Constitution for politicizing the military and stifling legitimate protest, and decrying his instinct for divisiveness. Then Republican Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski essentially endorsed Mattis' criticisms. That could be a big deal, especially when added to polling indicating that two-thirds of Americans think Trump is inflaming racial tensions.

The surprise news last evening that unemployment isn't nearly as bad as economists had predicted was a godsend for Trump, who at this point desperately needs a good development to point to.
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Re: Trump Watch

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DWill wrote:photo op has broken new ground in a troublesome way for Trump.
Definitely. This comment explains his theological engagement quite well. Watch the eyes dance in response to the question comparing OT and NT.
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Re: Trump Watch

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And now, according to John Bolton, we learn that Trump was angling for re-election with the items he asked from China in the trade talks. Umm, sorry Mr. Bolton, but picking negotiation strategy to favor electoral victory is as old as democracy. This is a clear case of the Dershowitz Doctrine: Trump's intent was probably corrupt, but you can make a good case that even a disinterested politician would have asked for the same purchases of farm products.

What it really tells us is the importance of rule-based trade. All politicians use trade measures electorally, but if the scope is limited by law, then the damage and corruption will be, too.

I'm more worried by Bolton's accusation that Trump praised the re-education camps for Uighurs, but that is so obviously Trump just being Trump that it's hard to conclude any new ground or "depths of his depravity" was demonstrated.

And will Bolton's book be quashed for not clearing the process of checking for classified info? I'm betting that "no prior restraint" will be applied - that if Barr can't make a case in private that Bolton disclosed damaging classified information, it will get the treatment given to the Pentagon Papers: "let it be published, then prosecute if you have such a good case."
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Re: Trump Watch

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With the type of willful ignorance being committed by Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers who turn a blind eye to the unchecked violence being committed in liberal run cities and states I think it's time to consider casting a vote for Trump this time around,


Anything to try and offset the type of vile hypocrisy going on.

My gosh.. truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
Last edited by ant on Wed Jun 17, 2020 11:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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DWill

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Re: Trump Watch

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ant wrote:With the type of willful ignorance being committed by Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers who turn a blind eye to the unchecked violence being committed in liberal run cities and states I think it's time to consider casting a vote for Trump this time around,


Anything to try and offset the type of vile hypocrisy going on.

My gosh.. truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
It all comes down to salience, doesn't it, what stands out most prominently in the negative sense. With these two candidates, the least bad choice seems to summarize it. You see 'unchecked violence' as a reason to keep Trump in the WH. I look at a president who says that a 75 y-o protester who was thrown to the ground by police, suffering brain damage, worked for Antifa and faked the incident. Trump had that from a good, apparently Russian, source.
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