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  • Donald Trump Is a Broken Man
    In another time, in a different circumstance, there would perhaps be room to pity such a person.

    JULY 21, 2020
    Peter Wehner
    Contributing writer at The Atlantic and senior fellow at EPPC


    The most revealing answer from Donald Trump’s interview with Fox News Channel’s Chris Wallace came in response not to the toughest question posed by Wallace, but to the easiest.

    At the conclusion of the interview, Wallace asked Trump how he will regard his years as president.

    “I think I was very unfairly treated,” Trump responded. “From before I even won, I was under investigation by a bunch of thieves, crooks. It was an illegal investigation.”

    When Wallace interrupted, trying to get Trump to focus on the positive achievements of his presidency—“What about the good parts, sir?”—Trump brushed the question aside, responding, “Russia, Russia, Russia.” The president then complained about the Flynn investigation, the “Russia hoax,” the “Mueller scam,” and the recusal by his then–attorney general, Jeff Sessions. (“Now I feel good because he lost overwhelmingly in the great state of Alabama,” Trump said about the first senator to endorse him in the 2016 Republican primary.)

    Donald Trump is a psychologically broken, embittered, and deeply unhappy man. He is so gripped by his grievances, such a prisoner of his resentments, that even the most benevolent question from an interviewer—what good parts of your presidency would you like to be remembered for?—triggered a gusher of discontent.

    But the president still wasn’t done. “Here’s the bottom line,” he said. “I’ve been very unfairly treated, and I don’t say that as paranoid. I’ve been very—everybody says it. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens. But there was tremendous evidence right now as to how unfairly treated I was. President Obama and Biden spied on my campaign. It’s never happened in history. If it were the other way around, the people would be in jail for 50 years right now.”

    Just in case his bitterness wasn’t coming through clearly enough, the president added this: “That would be Comey, that would be Brennan, that would be all of this—the two lovers, Strzok and Page, they would be in jail now for many, many years. They would be in jail; it would’ve started two years ago, and they’d be there for 50 years. The fact is, they illegally spied on my campaign. Let’s see what happens. Despite that, I did more than any president in history in the first three and a half years.”

    With that, the interview ended.

    Such a disposition in almost anyone else—a teacher, a tax accountant, a CEO, a cab driver, a reality-television star—would be unfortunate enough. After all, people who obsess about being wronged are just plain unpleasant to be around: perpetually ungrateful, short-tempered, self-absorbed, never at peace, never at rest.

    But Donald Trump isn’t a teacher, a tax accountant, or (any longer) a reality-television star; he is, by virtue of the office he holds, in possession of unmatched power. The fact that he is devoid of any moral sensibilities or admirable human qualities—self-discipline, compassion, empathy, responsibility, courage, honesty, loyalty, prudence, temperance, a desire for justice—means he has no internal moral check; the question Is this the right thing to do? never enters his mind. As a result, he not only nurses his grievances; he acts on them. He lives to exact revenge, to watch his opponents suffer, to inflict pain on those who don’t bend before him. Even former war heroes who have died can’t escape his wrath.

    So Donald Trump is a vindictive man who also happens to be commander in chief and head of the executive branch, which includes the Justice Department, and there is no one around the president who will stand up to him. He has surrounded himself with lapdogs.

    But the problem doesn’t end there. In a single term, Trump has reshaped the Republican Party through and through, and his dispositional imprint on the GOP is as great as any in modern history, including Ronald Reagan’s.

    I say that as a person who was deeply shaped by Reagan and his presidency. My first job in government was working for the Reagan administration, when I was in my 20s. The conservative movement in the 1980s, although hardly flawless, was intellectually serious and politically optimistic. And Reagan himself was a man of personal decency, grace, and class. While often the target of nasty attacks, he maintained a remarkably charitable view of his political adversaries. “Remember, we have no enemies, only opponents,” the former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, who worked for Reagan, quotes him as admonishing his staff.

    In his farewell address to the nation, Reagan offered an evocative description of America. “I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it,” he said. “But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.”

    A city tall and proud, its people living in harmony and peace, surrounded by walls with open doors; that was Ronald Reagan’s image of America, and Ronald Reagan’s Republican Party.

    When Reagan died in 2004, the conservative columnist George Will wrote a moving tribute to his friend, saying of America’s 40th president, “He traveled far, had a grand time all the way, and his cheerfulness was contagious.” Reagan had a “talent for happiness,” according to Will. And he added this: “Reagan in his presidential role made vivid the values, particularly hopefulness and friendliness, that give cohesion and dynamism to this continental nation.”

    There were certainly ugly elements on the American right during the Reagan presidency, and Reagan himself was not without flaws. But as president, he set the tone, and the tone was optimism, courtliness and elegance, joie de vivre.

    He has since been replaced by the crudest and cruelest man ever to be president.
    But not just that. One senses in Donald Trump no joy, no delight, no laughter. All the emotions that drive him are negative. There is something repugnant about Trump, yes, but there is also something quite sad about the man. He is a damaged soul.

    In another time, in a different circumstance, there would perhaps be room to pity such a person. But for now, it is best for the pity to wait. There are other things to which to attend. The American public faces one great and morally urgent task above all others between now and November: to do everything in its power to remove from the presidency a self-pitying man who is shattering the nation and doesn’t even care. Link
    _____________

    "He lives to exact revenge, to watch his opponents suffer, to inflict pain on those who don’t bend before him. Even former war heroes who have died can’t escape his wrath."

    The problem is Trump's followers see this as a beneficial, desirable feature of his presidency. Not a flaw, not a reprehensible character trait. It's why they voted for him in the first place.

    “He’s not hurting the people he needs to be”

    It really is a shame that the WAB members who are Trump followers have left, voluntarily or otherwise. I truly would like to know how they feel about him right now and if their feelings have changed at all over the past 4 years.

    I suspect they haven't. But I would dearly love to be proven wrong.
    “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

    Comment


    • Originally posted by JRT View Post
      [ATTACH=CONFIG]48883[/ATTACH]

      Chris David, 53 year old US Navy veteran and US Naval Academy graduate assaulted by Federal paramilitary in Portland while standing still asking them about their service and their sworn oath to the US Constitution. He will need surgury on his hand.

      My dude is stone cold stud!
      “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
      Mark Twain

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
        My dude is stone cold stud!
        I was amazed as he stood solidly absorbing those baton hits and kept on ticking from the clown called a Federal agent.

        Comment


        • I was listening to the news on an Albany NY radio station, WAMC, and heard this. I had to share it. Give it a listen. This genius should be on Trump's political team.

          https://cpa.ds.npr.org/wamc/audio/20...-20_full_0.mp3
          Last edited by JRT; 23 Jul 20,, 00:47.
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          Comment


          • Originally posted by tbm3fan View Post
            I was amazed as he stood solidly absorbing those baton hits and kept on ticking from the clown called a Federal agent.
            The guy is solid, shows what military personnel are made of. These federal agents are US Marshals?
            Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!

            Comment


            • Originally posted by JRT View Post
              [ATTACH=CONFIG]48883[/ATTACH]

              Chris David, 53 year old US Navy veteran and US Naval Academy graduate assaulted by Federal paramilitary in Portland while standing still asking them about their service and their sworn oath to the US Constitution. He will need surgury on his hand.

              From my observation on other chat sites, the very same people screaming FASCISM at any hint of a COVID related restriction are the ones most loudly cheering Trump's goon squad as it rides roughshod over the concerns of state & local authorities. its only 'tyranny' when someone tells bubba to wear a mask.

              While it will never happen, part of me would love to see the same heavy handed approach to sending in the Feds used by future Democrat Presidents to protect minority rights. Seeing a small army of unidentified Feds in unmarked vans descend on random Southern towns and lock them down every time the SPLC reports racism or voter supression would be some very enjoyable payback.
              sigpic

              Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

              Comment


              • Originally posted by snapper View Post
                I think it's pretty basic; use 'reasonable force'. This does not include kneeling on the back of a persons neck when they say they cannot breathe for however long. Cuff them and let them breathe. It does not include shooting a person you know to be unarmed since you have no reason to believe they are an immediate danger to you or anyone else.
                An isolated incident that got blown up only because it was white on black.

                What about black on black ? any one want to talk about that.

                You know gang violence that ends up with black children & teenagers killed in neighbourhoods. No, that does not get much coverage.

                Why ? because those black lives don't matter for BLM.

                Harvard professor’s research: ‘Defunding the police could cost thousands of black lives’ | TCF | Jun 15 2020

                This prof is interesting because his earlier research found no racial bias in police shootings. If that was not blasphemy he's called out this defund nonsense for what it is.

                His recent working paper showed a spike in homicides as a result of reduced policing due to public outrage about some incident that went viral

                According to the Harvard scholars’ working paper on the impact of these investigations into police activity on homicide and crime rates, published in early June, the investigations resulted in “almost 900 excess homicides and almost 34,000 excess felonies.”

                This spike in the crime rate occurred over the course of two years in the five cities where those deaths and viral incidents occurred: Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Laquan McDonald in Chicago, Timothy Thomas in Cincinnati, Tyisha Miller in Riverside, California, and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

                While the underlying cause of this dramatic spike is unknown, Fryer and Devi hypothesize that it is caused by a substantial decrease in proactive police activity.
                So crimes will go up because the cops will going light.

                The idea behind defund is take away resources from the police and reallocate them for social services. Sounds like a good idea since they're addressing issues that result in crime in the future.

                But the immediate effect is less funds for policing so crimes go up in the short term.



                For people in poorer areas the cops are the only thing that stands between them and the gangs provided its not a no-go area.

                NYPD has disbanded their anti-crime unit because of too many complaints they were aggressive. Those are the guys that go after the gangs. Ones that shoot up neighbourhoods.

                Discussion with Roland Fryer
                Last edited by Double Edge; 23 Jul 20,, 12:50.

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                • This is how defund is being explained

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                  We have to wait and see after a year or two whether the intended result is achieved or not.

                  NYC is Dems town so they make the rules.
                  Last edited by Double Edge; 23 Jul 20,, 12:10.

                  Comment


                  • Thanks for explaining to me the way my country works....insert eye roll.gif.
                    “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                    Mark Twain

                    Comment


                    • How about this gem from 1993 by guess who...



                      Dems used to have a rep for being soft on crime so they decided to get tough.

                      3:00 Must take back the streets Biden says and the way you take back the streets is by more cops, more prisons, more physical protection for the people

                      The Crime bill ended up putting people away for a long time. Boosted prison populations.

                      This is what annoys me about the opposition in general, when they're in power they say one thing and in opposition something else.

                      The joke is this guy is asking for the black vote but he's responsible for putting many of them away.
                      Last edited by Double Edge; 23 Jul 20,, 18:17.

                      Comment


                      • surprise surprise, the Democratic Party of 30 years ago is different from the Democratic Party of today.

                        that's why Biden was never popular with the base of the Democratic Party, and is also why he has a completely different platform today.

                        as for this:

                        This is what annoys me about the opposition in general, when they're in power they say one thing and in opposition something else.
                        that's a truism for -any- political party. on the planet.
                        There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by astralis View Post
                          surprise surprise, the Democratic Party of 30 years ago is different from the Democratic Party of today.

                          that's why Biden was never popular with the base of the Democratic Party, and is also why he has a completely different platform today.

                          as for this:
                          his is what annoys me about the opposition in general, when they're in power they say one thing and in opposition something else.


                          that's a truism for -any- political party. on the planet.
                          Of course, Donald Trump takes this to a whole different level, despite never even being in politics for most of his life.

                          Donald Trump’s Greatest Self-Contradictions

                          “I have no intention of running for president.” (Time, September 14, 1987)

                          “I am officially running for president.” (New York, June 16, 2015)

                          “I don’t want it for myself. I don’t need it for myself.” (ABC News, November 20, 2015)

                          “I wanted to do this for myself. … I had to do it for myself.” (Time, August 18, 2015)

                          “Politicians are all talk and no action.” (Twitter, May 27, 2015)

                          “I’m not a politician.” (CNN, August 11, 2015)

                          “I’m no different than a politician running for office.” (New York Times, July 28, 2015)

                          “If I ever ran for office, I’d do better as a Democrat than as a Republican—and that’s not because I’d be more liberal, because I’m conservative.” (Playboy, March 1990)

                          “I’m a registered Republican. I’m a pretty conservative guy. I’m somewhat liberal on social issues, especially health care.” (CNN, October 8, 1999)

                          “You’d be shocked if I said that in many cases I probably identify more as a Democrat.” (CNN, March 21, 2004)

                          “Look, I’m a Republican. I’m a very conservative guy in many respects—I guess in most respects.” (The Hugh Hewitt Show, February 25, 2015)

                          “I’ve actually been an activist Democrat and Republican.” (CNN, October 8, 1999)

                          “Folks, I’m a conservative, but at this point, who cares? We got to straighten out the country.” (Burlingame, California, April 29, 2016)

                          “I’m totally pro-choice.” (Fox News, October 31, 1999)

                          “I’m pro-life.” (CPAC, February 10, 2011)

                          “Look, I’m very pro-choice. I hate the concept of abortion. I hate it. I hate everything it stands for. I cringe when I listen to people debating the subject, but you still—I just believe in choice. … I am strongly for choice, and yet I hate the concept of abortion. … I am pro-choice in every respect … but I just hate it.” (NBC News, October 24, 1999)

                          “I am very, very proud to say that I’m pro-life.” (Cleveland, Ohio, August 6, 2015)

                          “I think the institution of marriage should be between a man and a woman.” (The Advocate, February 15, 2000)

                          “If two people dig each other, they dig each other.” (Trump University “Trump Blog,” December 22, 2005)

                          “I’m against gay marriage.” (Fox News, April 14, 2011)

                          “It’s like in golf. A lot of people—I don’t want this to sound trivial—but a lot of people are switching to these really long putters, very unattractive. It’s weird. You see these great players with these really long putters, because they can’t sink three-footers anymore. And I hate it. I am a traditionalist. I have so many fabulous friends who happen to be gay, but I am a traditionalist.” (New York Times, May 1, 2011)

                          “It’s always good to do things nice and complicated so that nobody can figure it out.” (The New Yorker, May 19, 1997)

                          “The simplest approach is often the most effective.” (Trump: The Art of the Deal, 1987)

                          “My attention span is short.” (Trump: Surviving at the Top, 1990)

                          “I have an attention span that’s as long as it has to be.” (Time, August 18, 2015)

                          “I prefer to come to work each day and just see what develops.” (Trump: The Art of the Deal, 1987)

                          “You can’t just sit around waiting for deals, opportunities, or a lucky break.” (Trump: Think Big, 2007)

                          “I look at things for the art sake and the beauty sake and for the deal sake.” (New York magazine, July 11, 1988)

                          “I’m just a fucking businessman.” (Fortune, April 19, 2004)
                          There are many many more on the link. Way too many to reproduce here.
                          Last edited by Firestorm; 23 Jul 20,, 22:31.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by astralis View Post
                            surprise surprise, the Democratic Party of 30 years ago is different from the Democratic Party of today.
                            True but how has the perception of crime changed today compared to back then ?

                            People felt more besieged back then, the man is talking about his entire family getting physically assaulted.

                            The economy was starting to pick up and police budgets were on the rise.

                            Comment


                            • This election is difficult to call because there are two negatives at play.

                              No sitting US president has won re-election on the back of a bad economy.

                              No candidate has won an election after losing the debates.

                              I'm hearing Biden didn't do too well at the Democrat debates despite being nominated and will get mauled in the debates with Trump.

                              Comment


                              • True but how has the perception of crime changed today compared to back then ?

                                People felt more besieged back then, the man is talking about his entire family getting physically assaulted.

                                The economy was starting to pick up and police budgets were on the rise.
                                so I don't get your point.

                                circumstances have changed, in terms of crime, in terms of national mood, in terms of Black political power within the Democratic Party, and most importantly, within the overall base of the Democratic Party.

                                why shouldn't the Party and its Presidential nominee change accordingly?

                                No candidate has won an election after losing the debates.

                                I'm hearing Biden didn't do too well at the Democrat debates despite being nominated and will get mauled in the debates with Trump.
                                HRC destroyed Trump in the debates repeatedly and she still lost.

                                Biden didn't do well...or poorly...in the primary debates and he won.

                                if the Democratic Party can't win against a President presiding over 150K+ deaths from a pandemic and its concurrent tanking economy, I'm not sure under what circumstances they can win.
                                There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                                Comment

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