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The Trump Presidency...is Over

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I just hope other countries are looking at this and thinking 'shall we just have at look and double check that we have a system in place in case we accidentally elect a criminal'.

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On 24/12/2020 at 6:30 AM, Glen-i said:

I'm with you there. I shouldn't feel so annoyed because it's par for the course for this joke of a president, but here we are.

The pardon system just feels so fundamentally wrong to me. I fail to see the genuine benefit to overturning this kind of thing. It just creates all sorts of distrust in an already distrusted government and it just seems so backwards.

Then again, it's America. The gun laws should clue you in to how backwards it can be.

Doesn't it just make you feel so dissonant though? All 'where are the adults in the room' abd Emporor's New Clothes - its an absolute madness. I've been following politics more closely since reading the Cambridge Analytica files a few years ago - I read the 440+ page Mueller report and I've read I'd say 10+ court summaries from these election challenges(not much of a feat they're very samey lack of standing lack of merit lack of recourse/moot for court) I read the UK russia report(v diff styled to US Mueller...either lazy or very obfuscated for reasons) and I just keep wondering;

1. Why is NO-ONE taking any responsible action?  its like a collective helplessness/diffusion of responsibility. The UK Russia report actually quite much concluded and criticised the government for that - knowing and taking no action. The services that investigate do their jobs but it is not the job of Intelligence to bring the actions forward that are concluded from investigations or operations. This actually was echoed somewhat by both Mueller at his time(people seemed to think it was 'his' job to go after Trump and act on the report - No. He was the objective special counsel. John Bolton similarly kind of explained his reasons for not testifying in the Impeachment - it was a theatrical more than practical trial. They weren't bringing it well - the Democrats got into tribal 'Us and Them!' ideation over utilising the facts and findings of it. Why they didnt have more killers to really push that I do NOT understand.

2. How anyone can be in any doubt - the 440+ pages whilst long are not unclear. It's all there. Plus testimonies from witnesses(i watched some of the hearings too - Gordon Sondland was interesting and essentially a slightly damning piece imo) AND THE FACT HE IS NOW PARDONING ALL OF THEM. Like I literally knew from back then he would.

 

Also with all this election shit - how can anyone believe it? Or Trump?

More importantly - where are our voices in society that should be drawing these lines very firmly in the sand and why are they not being heard over patent falsehoods?

It's confusing and infuriating. I just cannot comprehend it. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes??

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52 minutes ago, Rummy said:

Doesn't it just make you feel so dissonant though? All 'where are the adults in the room' abd Emporor's New Clothes - its an absolute madness. I've been following politics more closely since reading the Cambridge Analytica files a few years ago - I read the 440+ page Mueller report and I've read I'd say 10+ court summaries from these election challenges(not much of a feat they're very samey lack of standing lack of merit lack of recourse/moot for court) I read the UK russia report(v diff styled to US Mueller...either lazy or very obfuscated for reasons) and I just keep wondering;

1. Why is NO-ONE taking any responsible action?  its like a collective helplessness/diffusion of responsibility. The UK Russia report actually quite much concluded and criticised the government for that - knowing and taking no action. The services that investigate do their jobs but it is not the job of Intelligence to bring the actions forward that are concluded from investigations or operations. This actually was echoed somewhat by both Mueller at his time(people seemed to think it was 'his' job to go after Trump and act on the report - No. He was the objective special counsel. John Bolton similarly kind of explained his reasons for not testifying in the Impeachment - it was a theatrical more than practical trial. They weren't bringing it well - the Democrats got into tribal 'Us and Them!' ideation over utilising the facts and findings of it. Why they didnt have more killers to really push that I do NOT understand.

2. How anyone can be in any doubt - the 440+ pages whilst long are not unclear. It's all there. Plus testimonies from witnesses(i watched some of the hearings too - Gordon Sondland was interesting and essentially a slightly damning piece imo) AND THE FACT HE IS NOW PARDONING ALL OF THEM. Like I literally knew from back then he would.

 

Also with all this election shit - how can anyone believe it? Or Trump?

More importantly - where are our voices in society that should be drawing these lines very firmly in the sand and why are they not being heard over patent falsehoods?

It's confusing and infuriating. I just cannot comprehend it. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes??

You mentioned the "Us and Them" viewpoint, and quite frankly, a lot of problems in politics can be attributed to that kind of thinking.
The general public generally don't like finding out that their choices were wrong and instead of admit that they made a mistake, will double down and insist that it's their fault.

What makes this truly terrible is that politicians know this and do not hesitate to use it to their advantage.
You see this all the time in the UK, especially in Prime Minister's Questions. Paraphrasing just a tad here, but

Kier Starmer: "Question about an issue that the Labour Party feels needs to be sorted/explained"
Boris Johnson: "Labour do nothing but criticise our actions! They should be more supportive and support the choices we make, but they won't because they're just point scoring!"

190904-Boris-Johnson-sulking.jpg?ssl=1

Might as well just respond with this face.

It happens all the time with this government and I always think "Well, duh. They're the opposition, their job is to scrutinise the government's actions"
But to the Conservative supporters that can't bear the thought of having to admit they might have made the wrong choice, this fits their narrative perfectly. "Things would be better if they co-operated more".

It's not quite the same in America. The foundations of "them and us" are there, but it's a lot more extreme. And it's really gotten bad because Trump uses that card to extreme effects. And Americans are a whole lot more passionate about their political allegiance, which has naturally led to violence and the like.

Thinking Joe Biden is going to change things for the better, is wishful thinking in my eyes. Things might calm down in the White House, for sure. But that "us and them" mentality is still going to be there and it's not going away anytime soon.

Of course, I am generalising quite a bit here. Naturally, not everyone is like that, but the fact is, most are.

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I want to say I'm surprised at the absolute lack of international outrage and condemnation but I guess I am not really but fuck me what the fuck are our media doing if Jeremy Corbyn is basically reportedly murdering Jews whilst Trump reportedly gives candy to all the kids like the nice old man he is?!

 

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/03/politics/donald-trump-brad-raffensperger-call-washington-post/index.html

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11 hours ago, Rummy said:

I want to say I'm surprised at the absolute lack of international outrage and condemnation but I guess I am not really but fuck me what the fuck are our media doing if Jeremy Corbyn is basically reportedly murdering Jews whilst Trump reportedly gives candy to all the kids like the nice old man he is?!

What media do you consume that takes these view points? As far as I can tell, ignoring things like Fox, basically everyone thinks Trump is a joke.

Can’t say I’m at all surprised by this, it’s exactly in line with his way of doing things. Only three weeks to go and it will be over. At least his involvement with power will be, I have a feeling the comedy of the man’s actions will continue to entertain us all for a while yet.

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7 hours ago, Rummy said:

Nope, I believe it, the guy is desperate. He knows he's getting charged with some kind of crime the moment he leaves the White House.

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I still can't believe they have to wait until he leaves office to charge him with a crime. How bad would the crime have to be to simply arrest him?

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52 minutes ago, bob said:

I still can't believe they have to wait until he leaves office to charge him with a crime. How bad would the crime have to be to simply arrest him?

I reckon he’d have to murder someone live on camera, even then I’m not convinced he’d be arrested.

He must be really worried about when he leaves office though.

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2 hours ago, Will said:

What media do you consume that takes these view points? As far as I can tell, ignoring things like Fox, basically everyone thinks Trump is a joke.

Can’t say I’m at all surprised by this, it’s exactly in line with his way of doing things. Only three weeks to go and it will be over. At least his involvement with power will be, I have a feeling the comedy of the man’s actions will continue to entertain us all for a while yet.

Well I was obviously being facetious - the point being any and all media that vilified Jeremy Corbyn should surrly rightfully be vilifying Trump for this pretty illegal looking phone call. It's a sad shame of media as a bias - but is the difficult case of complaining about what they are NOT reporting enough rather than what they are - and them I'm QAnoning. Consider most of the tradition coverage of Trump as he's always been a headlime grabber but...why not now? Call him out seriously and publicly? The media helped cause this do they not have some responsility etcetc.

(this is, ofc all, just rhetorics from me. We both this whole thing is far more complex and nuanced than that - but I can't really deep delve all that sort of stuff in a passing forum post :p)

 

As for us not being surprised - sure very few of us are. That's a problem though imo. I think it's real damn dangerous just normalising all of this. Or writing it off just because its Trump. That's the Cult of Personality.

 

Edit: Basically its not fucking acceptable to me that in a few months all the Trumpers(in office/position of power) and 'allies' will basically just be that monkey puppet meme thing. Accountability is imo important - and its dying out even morr than it already was amongst the upper echelons. It isn't sustainable.

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3 hours ago, Will said:

What media do you consume that takes these view points? As far as I can tell, ignoring things like Fox, basically everyone thinks Trump is a joke.

This.

There's plenty of international condemnation but the UK media concern themselves more with UK politics, funnily enough, and Trump's actions atm are a US issue.

Edited by Ronnie

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7 hours ago, Ronnie said:

This.

There's plenty of international condemnation but the UK media concern themselves more with UK politics, funnily enough, and Trump's actions atm are a US issue.

Yeah or you could read my direct reply to that immediately above, instead of blindly commenting uselessly? Trying to Troll me here, @Ronnie? We all know that's not cool by the rules. Your form gives you no pass.

 

I'll give this too - it was a Saturday call and its a weekend - less happens. Yet if you look at various outlets there is often an absence or lightness of reporting(and lets not pretend no UK media jumps at Trump just as much as they liked to jump at Corbyn). I see some of the Americans themselves are now speaking out in condemnation and that's being reported - but why don't papers report the seriousness and potential legal implications with their story?

Look at all this election fraud stuff - many courts dismissed for standing let alone then merits if they could even hear the case - its not difficult to explain or report - but the news articles don't bother to explain it much to people - hence Trump can say stupid stuff like saying he's not assigned a Judge for his cases or that they won't 'hear' the case not listen etcetc. Patent falsehoods.

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10 minutes ago, Rummy said:

instead of blindly commenting uselessly

Excuse me?

I was replying to Will's post, whether you so disrespectfully regard it as useless or not.

Edited by Ronnie

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9 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Excuse me?

I was replying to Will's post, whether you so disrespectfully regard it as useless or not.

You mean the one asking me a direct question quoting me? Cease and desist with me Ronnie - or I'll temporarily ban you from this thread(tbh been so long since I had to not sure if thats even still a thing, but point stands). Only warning. Cease and desist with me.

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Sorry Rummy but in terms of relevance and interest, potential PM of the country is of greater relevance and interest than the President of any other nation. The US, China and Russia are notable nations, but we don't hear about every stupid/morally dubious thing they do. at the moment, basically trump is having a tantrum, it isn't "news". News would be trump taking it on the chin, and behaving like an adult and following rules and protocols etc. Reporting on what he's upto now would be akin to saying "and today, there wasn't an earthquake in London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid..... etc etc. Utterly uninteresting.

"the point being any and all media that vilified Jeremy Corbyn should surrly rightfully be vilifying Trump for this pretty illegal looking phone call. "

I don't see why. As ronnie said, the UK media focuses on the UK, the rest of the world is more peripheral. as you mentioned, the media don't mention most things, but it's not possible to. the sheer volume of "news" is too great, so they have to choose things based on interest, relevance and newsworthiness. Trump having a tantrum and breaking rules/norms is very far from newsworthy in it's own, Would you rather have a new paper full or the crap trump has done, or something looking at covid, brexit etc. it's a lot closer and relevant, it's not because the media love trump. sure media bias exists (including "fine" media you love. it all has some bias, no matter how much they may try to avoid it, but it's not always the reason they ignore subject matters.

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The US Capitol Building is currently undergoing a terrorist attack on behalf of Trump.

 

Virginia's national guard and some state troops have been sent, reposts suggest that DCs national guard have not been denied to support - unfortunately they require orders from the President to act from what I can tell.

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On 04/01/2021 at 7:43 PM, Pestneb said:

Sorry Rummy but in terms of relevance and interest, potential PM of the country is of greater relevance and interest than the President of any other nation. The US, China and Russia are notable nations, but we don't hear about every stupid/morally dubious thing they do. at the moment, basically trump is having a tantrum, it isn't "news". News would be trump taking it on the chin, and behaving like an adult and following rules and protocols etc. Reporting on what he's upto now would be akin to saying "and today, there wasn't an earthquake in London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid..... etc etc. Utterly uninteresting.

"the point being any and all media that vilified Jeremy Corbyn should surrly rightfully be vilifying Trump for this pretty illegal looking phone call. "

I don't see why. As ronnie said, the UK media focuses on the UK, the rest of the world is more peripheral. as you mentioned, the media don't mention most things, but it's not possible to. the sheer volume of "news" is too great, so they have to choose things based on interest, relevance and newsworthiness. Trump having a tantrum and breaking rules/norms is very far from newsworthy in it's own, Would you rather have a new paper full or the crap trump has done, or something looking at covid, brexit etc. it's a lot closer and relevant, it's not because the media love trump. sure media bias exists (including "fine" media you love. it all has some bias, no matter how much they may try to avoid it, but it's not always the reason they ignore subject matters.

Just to address what I felt was obvious given ourselves here - I never and was never referring to 'newspapers' as it were. I am not popping to the shop every day and reading just one news publisher's output. In this current modern digital world that just doesn't happen - and whilst you guys may be focusing on headlines and attention grabbers YOU see I'm talking as somebody who regular checks various different outlets and their output - would you be willing to find me one single site that is a UK media based organisation that DOESNT report on ANY foreign politics? Foreign news is still news. It always has been. We've always seen foreign correspondents. I am not critiquing main headlines - I READ the sections of papers where they offer their foreign news - yes I was being facetious but I compare news outlets within and of themselves as well as at the same time comparing differences between them. I won't pretend I'm taking some highly empirical approach to all this - but it seems all 3 of you have presumed I'm just popping down the local picking up the Daily Mail every day or something(who curiously actually had MORE prominent reporting than I expected to encounter on Melissa Carone when I was looking into that issue but thats just a nuance) - do any of YOU do that? How do you guys consume YOUR news? In a digital world its nothing like the newspaper world of old - and I don't live in that. I have millions of websites at my fingertips to explore - there's no need to jump just at headlines no stick to just one source. I presumed this was kinda obvious.

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I've already been embarrassed for the last four years. And now I'm just plain old ashamed to be from the same nation as these people. This is absurd and I feel a bit ill.

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At this point even Trump conceding defeat won't get these thugs to stop, it's utterly appalling. 

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22 hours ago, Rummy said:

Just to address what I felt was obvious given ourselves here - I never and was never referring to 'newspapers' as it were. I am not popping to the shop every day and reading just one news publisher's output. In this current modern digital world that just doesn't happen - and whilst you guys may be focusing on headlines and attention grabbers YOU see I'm talking as somebody who regular checks various different outlets and their output - would you be willing to find me one single site that is a UK media based organisation that DOESNT report on ANY foreign politics? Foreign news is still news. It always has been. We've always seen foreign correspondents. I am not critiquing main headlines - I READ the sections of papers where they offer their foreign news - yes I was being facetious but I compare news outlets within and of themselves as well as at the same time comparing differences between them. I won't pretend I'm taking some highly empirical approach to all this - but it seems all 3 of you have presumed I'm just popping down the local picking up the Daily Mail every day or something(who curiously actually had MORE prominent reporting than I expected to encounter on Melissa Carone when I was looking into that issue but thats just a nuance) - do any of YOU do that? How do you guys consume YOUR news? In a digital world its nothing like the newspaper world of old - and I don't live in that. I have millions of websites at my fingertips to explore - there's no need to jump just at headlines no stick to just one source. I presumed this was kinda obvious.

I used newspapers as an example, I was referring to media in general for the majority of my post, so yes it was obvious you weren't just talking about newspapers.

I also didn't say outlets never cover foreign events. Of course they do. But there is a question of relevance and interest. The further out things are the more interesting they have to be to be considered newsworthy.

I didn't presume you read a single source. tbh I don't care particularly if you read every media source in the world in every language, every single last word of it. it wouldn't suddenly validate for example

"the point being any and all media that vilified Jeremy Corbyn should surrly rightfully be vilifying Trump for this pretty illegal looking phone call. "

if I told you I head read every scientific journal in the world, every non fiction article/book/internet forum post, it wouldn't validate me in the least  if I were to, for example, claim that "mount everest is a hoax, it is in fact the worlds shortest mountain".

So please, why on Earth should a British based media organisation who published articles discrediting Corbyn, a potential holder of the highest political position in their country, therefore be compelled to vilify the out going president of another nation for doing something that has no influence on his own nation (afaik the guy didn't go and find extra votes right?) yet alone the UK...

Quite frankly I don't see that it would achieve anything. It tells us nothing new about Trump, it doesn't expose an unknown fact, it doesn't give useful information, call for action amongst the population. It basically holds as much merit as an opinion piece simply pointing out Trumps character faults.  Not exactly an edifying or meaningful use of one's time is it?

 

I don't have time these days to "consume" much news, generally too busy working and then looking after my daughter. I understand that makes your opinion far more valid than my own and I apologise for questioning your superior position! But back when I was single I did "consume" a wide range of media including foreign media (restricted mainly to French/Spanish/Italian because I found translations weren't satisfactory enough and those were the only languages I was fluent enough in.)

I recognise there may have been changes in the media in the last few years, but I do recall seeing drastic changes in what foreign news was discussed according to which country the media came from. I suspect this is to do with economical, political and cultural particularities of said countries. Going back to your original point about Trump, plenty of media has given him a negative coverage, I've not seen any particularly positive spin, but that is likely because most of the news I get these days comes from fb/google/bbc. Where have you found these hyper positive articles you have read recently? the only outlet I recall apparently giving strong positive feedback has been FOX news, who I believe ditched Trump by and large since he lost the election.

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America should be being a beacon to the world not a siren to stay away from. From the riots in Portland to the storming of Capitol Hill, it's embarrassing.

Edited by sumo73
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I'll respond to any posts etc. later as I'm following this and other things atm and not currently checking this thread but this has so far been my absolute favourite meme so far(if you don't know who; check Stacey Abrams from GA - unsung hero many of us will not appreciate - she possibly just flipped the entire US away from Republic power due to GA runoffs alonh with her election efforts);

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