If Trump Is So Incompetent, Why Do Democrats Fear Him So Much?

 

Democrats portray President Trump as an incompetent fool and an evil genius and a political ignoramus who doesn’t understand Washington and a political powerhouse who must be impeached because he’s unbeatable in an election. All at the same time. This seems odd. But not as odd as their apoplectic reaction to his election.

Hillary was not that popular, even among the Democrats that she had not cheated to get the nomination. Why were Democrats openly planning his impeachment even before he was inaugurated? He was a lifelong Democrat from New York City, for Pete’s sake. Did they really expect him to govern as a conservative? So much of this has been beyond my grasp from the beginning.

Clarice Feldman attempts to explain this in a fascinating article on American Thinker called “Trump is Toto.” Please read her well-thought-out article rather than my hurried summary, but she thinks Trump’s approach to the Middle East is emblematic of what Democratic leadership understood about him from day one:

The actual problem that the left sees more clearly than the right is Trump’s complex idiosyncrasies and style conceal a simple truth; declare the left’s shibboleths so much bull$#!% masquerading as fairy dust and their mystique and, more importantly, their political advantage goes poof!

She uses Trump’s recent approach to diplomacy with Iran to illustrate her point, comparing the way President Trump handled Iranian General Soleimani to the way President Carter handled the Iranians taking over our embassy and holding 52 hostages for 444 days in 1979 (Ms. Feldman’s comments are in italics, with extensive quotes from a piece by Caroline Glick):

If President Jimmy Carter acknowledged that the “students” weren’t students, but soldiers of Iran’s dictator Ayatollah Khomeini, the US would be compelled to fight back. And Carter and his advisers didn’t want to do that.

So rather than admit the truth, Carter accepted the absurd fiction spun by the regime that Khomeini was an innocent bystander who, try as he might, couldn’t get a bunch of “students” in central Tehran to free the hostages.

Hoping that Iran would be satisfied, they left Khomeini alone.

Khomeini and his “Death to America” shouting followers got the message. They understood that Washington had given them a green light to attack Americans in moderate and, as Smith put it, “plausibly deniable” doses. it. For the next 40 years, Iran maintained its aggression against America. And from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, every president since Carter accepted and kept faith with Carter’s decision not to hold the Iranian regime responsible for the acts of aggression and war it carried out against America through proxies.

Trump’s decision to kill Soleimani along with Muhandis destroyed the Carter administration’s Iran narrative.

By killing Soleimani, Trump made clear that the blank check for aggression the previous six presidents gave Tehran is now canceled. From now on, the regime will be held responsible for its actions. From now on US policy towards Iran will be based on reality and not on escapism.

* End quote *

I view Donald Trump as our first independent president. He wasn’t developed in the party system of either party, so he had no friends in the system, and no one knew or trusted him. I blamed his isolation and independence for Washington’s rejection of him from the day he showed up.

But I think Ms. Feldman’s theory makes more sense. So much of the Democrat message is based on baloney, and they know it. They say they can show strength in foreign policy by projecting weakness. They say we can tax our way into prosperity. They say that capital punishment is unconstitutional but abortion is a constitutionally protected civil right. They call Republicans childish and they worship Greta Thunburg. I could go on and on, and so could you.

The only way such nonsense can withstand scrutiny is by avoiding scrutiny. With academia and the media on their side, they face very little scrutiny.

But then Donald Trump shows up and simply disregards their policies as complete baloney.

Democrats: “But Mr. Trump, that’s just not how things are done in Washington.”

Trump: “I don’t care.”

This an existential threat to leftism in general, and the Democrat party in particular. And they know it.

Ms. Feldman quotes the article from Ms. Glick, in which she compares Donald Trump to Dorothy’s dog in The Wizard of Oz. The dog destroyed the wizard, not with forceful debate or escalating violence – it just pulled back the curtain, and exposed the wizard as a fraud, whose only strength was deception. As Ms. Glick said,

Trump isn’t Mussolini or Hitler. Neither is he Abe Lincoln or Daniel come to judgment. Donald Trump is Toto.

The Democrats may wish Trump was Hitler. But Toto is worse.

And they know it.

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  1. Eugene Kriegsmann Member
    Eugene Kriegsmann
    @EugeneKriegsmann

    I just listened to a brief clip Dan Bongino posted of Pelosi speaking to Stefanopolis. She is deranged. She has totally lost it. Trump has driven her over the edge. She is sounding more and more like Hillary. Trump has taken up rent-free residence in her head, and she can’t deal with it. They, the Democrats, began with the ridiculous chant of “Resist!” when Trump was elected, and tried every arrow in their quiver only to find them useless. Now they are harping on the one theme that, even though it was completely overturned by Mueller, has implanted itself in their psyches, Russian collusion. No one believes it other than the leading Democrats, but it is all they have, so they are clinging to it with all their might. They remind me of Ishmael clinging to Queequeg’s coffin after the sinking of the Pequod. Trump truly was their Moby Dick, and their ultimate destruction.

    • #31
  2. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    Speaking of China. From Breitbart eight years back:

    The official Chinese government news agency, Xinhua, has demanded the US immediately adopt stricter gun control measures to reduce the number of firearms the US populace is permitted to possess.

    The Chinese state-controlled media’s statement, titled “Innocent Blood Demands No Delay for US Gun Control,” is primarily focused on the Newtown tragedy in which 26 Americans were killed by a mad gunman. Twenty of the victims were young children.

    The Chinese government stated, “Their blood and tears demand no delay for the U.S. gun control.”

    In an apparent effort to restrict information to their populace, the Chinese government wrote of a number of US mass shootings but failed to mention they were either stopped by a citizen legally carrying a firearm or otherwise only occurred in the controversial gun-free zones that critics say make prime targets for madmen.

    Interesting that a certain political party its fascist news media (the MSM in the US is merely tightly integrated with the Deep State and the Democrat Party in a way that is more reminiscent of the relationship of Krupp, the German government and the NSDAP under Hitler while China’s press is under more direct state control) should have anti-Constitutional desires in common with China’s.

    I’m not saying that Virginia’s Governor Northam is a witting ally of the Chinese. (Sen. Feinstein, on the other hand…) 

    • #32
  3. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    Gossamer Cat (View Comment):
    Very true. But I’ve seen other versions of this over my lifetime-Trump is just the most extreme version and entertaining of this phenomenon: exposing the left. How many times have we been told by Democrats that nothing can be done?

    Once again, it is helpful to read Angelo Codevilla’s article, “The Ruling Class” to see it has been bipartisan for years.  The article is hard to find anymore and I don’t know why. He expanded it into a book which is what comes up in most searches.

    https://spectator.org/americas-ruling-class/

    • #33
  4. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    danok1 (View Comment):
    Even his die hard supporters suspect he slept with Stormy Daniels and that he is a rude boorish man and they don’t care. He is a most perplexing figure indeed.

    The blackmail from the porn actress has zero evidence. There is a photo at a golf tournament. That’s it. Trumnp is a famously fastidious man. Why assume he would have sex with a sewer?

    I don’t disagree about his manners but the blackmail attempt is too transparent. Have you noticed the similar attempt by the same lawyer with Kavanaugh ?  Believe them ?

    • #34
  5. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Franco (View Comment):

    In addition, I think the Democrats recognized instantly they were dealing with a force they were utterly unprepared to fight – another version of themselves.

    Republicans could always be made to feel shame, to ‘unite’ the country for the greater good, to resign, recuse themselves, to be the parental model for the country, and never go as low in their own defense as Democrats were willing to go in their attacks. This, by the way, also appalled the Never Trumpers, as their entire argument had become, Republicans are better people than Democrats and our elected representatives ( especially President) proves it. This approach metastasized during the Clinton era. (I’m not saying this is entirely wrong, it’s just not a very good default approach)

    These Never Trump Republicans held special pride that, at least their guy or gal would always do the ‘right thing’ and give way to a Democrat, who would immediately do all the wrong things, but at least they could not be held responsible, since they themselves weren’t – God forbid -Democrats.

    Policy actually became a secondary argument and as we see now, a tertiary priority.

    I’d like to nominate this for comment of the month.

    It’s worth remembering that before he went to his fainting couch over the decorum of Donald Trump, the driving force behind George Will calling George H.W. Bush a ‘lapdog’ back in 1986 wasn’t a difference in policy so much as it was the Vice President’s comment about kicking Geraldine Ferraro’s keister after the 1984 VP debate, followed by his comment in ’86 about Mario Cuomo, who at the time was expected to run against Bush for president in 1988.

    So even Bush’s preppy strutting 35 years ago was offensive to Will. Trump’s been trash-talking in the public spotlight since 1977 — throw in his outer borough deese, dem and dose personality and style and it’s easy to see why the polite conservatives of Washington and New York are reflexively appalled to where no conservative results suffice.

     

    • #35
  6. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    Because he’s undoing their agenda and uncovering too many ghosts in the Democratic closet? 

    • #36
  7. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    Terrific O.P. and comments.

    A note about Iran, prompted by a gripping, highly-recommended account of the period by WSJ reporter Yaroslav Trofimov: At the same time that the Iranian hostage crisis was underway (think: Shiite) the forerunners of Al Qaeda seized the holiest shrine in Islam, the Grand Mosque at Mecca (think: Sunni), an event that was incredibly complex, bloody (hundreds were killed) and frightening for the monarchy whose legitimacy and retention of power was threatened as well as for the U.S., whose embassy was besieged, allies endangered and, of course, whose oil supply was under clear, explicit threat.

    In this country, we paid far more attention to the hostage crisis for obvious reasons—Americans were hostages and it dragged on and on. Still, no one seems to even remember the siege at Mecca these days, despite the far higher casualty rate and its relationship to all that followed, including the mainstreaming of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, the rise of Al Qaeda, the conflict in Afghanistan, 9/11….

    Anyway, it would be very interesting to know, or at least discuss,  the relationship(s) between these two “scary-Muslim” events in the minds of American policy makers.

    • #37
  8. Rodin Member
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    GrannyDude (View Comment):

    Terrific O.P. and comments.

    A note about Iran, prompted by a gripping, highly-recommended account of the period by WSJ reporter Yaroslav Trofimov: At the same time that the Iranian hostage crisis was underway (think: Shiite) the forerunners of Al Qaeda seized the holiest shrine in Islam, the Grand Mosque at Mecca (think: Sunni), an event that was incredibly complex, bloody (hundreds were killed) and frightening for the monarchy whose legitimacy and retention of power was threatened as well as for the U.S., whose embassy was besieged, allies endangered and, of course, whose oil supply was under clear, explicit threat.

    In this country, we paid far more attention to the hostage crisis for obvious reasons—Americans were hostages and it dragged on and on. Still, no one seems to even remember the siege at Mecca these days, despite the far higher casualty rate and its relationship to all that followed, including the mainstreaming of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, the rise of Al Qaeda, the conflict in Afghanistan, 9/11….

    Anyway, it would be very interesting to know, or at least discuss, the relationship(s) between these two “scary-Muslim” events in the minds of American policy makers.

    This comment prompted me to do a little internet sleuthing to refresh my memory. At a time when we have become energy independent with regard to fossil-based energy and are creating magical thinkers about a future of non-fossil-based energy, it is easy to forget the tight linkage between American policy and Saudi interests in 1979. America’s environmental movement and the economics of domestic oil production was rapidly making oil importation are “go to” strategy. OPEC gladly embraced this as it conferred riches on an Arabian oligarchy. America thought it could afford those exported riches as a downpayment on a reliable commercial partner as its “westernizing” influence was portrayed on television in reports of cities in the desert springing up. OPEC became too western for American tastes with the oil shocks and embargo, but accepted it as a ploy for increasing its riches and ensuring that international relations were always to be tilted in Saudi’s favor. (American environmentalists effectively demanded it be so because of its staunch opposition to domestic production.) And so it was that a Saudi domestic dispute became an international problem when it decided to straddle 13th and 20th Century thinking by empowering wahhabism.

    • #38
  9. cirby Inactive
    cirby
    @cirby

    Eugene Kriegsmann (View Comment):
    Now they are harping on the one theme that, even though it was completely overturned by Mueller, has implanted itself in their psyches, Russian collusion. No one believes it other than the leading Democrats, but it is all they have, so they are clinging to it with all their might.

    Sorry, but you seem to have this 100% reversed.

    None of the top Democrats think Trump stole the election through Russian collusion. They have too many sources, have seen enough polls, and have paid for enough research to know better.

    On the other hand, a LOT of street-level Democrats and lefties believe, down to their bones, that Trump stole the election through Russian shenanigans.

    Just this morning, I saw a three-way exchange (at another site) between some lefties who were all congratulating each other for “knowing” about Russian collusion, and reinforcing the idea that the election was stolen outright.

    Pelosi and company know better, but the Democrat electorate believe worse.

     

    • #39
  10. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    Rodin (View Comment):

    This comment prompted me to do a little internet sleuthing to refresh my memory. At a time when we have become energy independent with regard to fossil-based energy and are creating magical thinkers about a future of non-fossil-based energy, it is easy to forget the tight linkage between American policy and Saudi interests in 1979. America’s environmental movement and the economics of domestic oil production was rapidly making oil importation are “go to” strategy. OPEC gladly embraced this as it conferred riches on an Arabian oligarchy. America thought it could afford those exported riches as a downpayment on a reliable commercial partner as its “westernizing” influence was portrayed on television in reports of cities in the desert springing up. OPEC became too western for American tastes with the oil shocks and embargo, but accepted it as a ploy for increasing its riches and ensuring that international relations were always to be tilted in Saudi’s favor. (American environmentalists effectively demanded it be so because of its staunch opposition to domestic production.) And so it was that a Saudi domestic dispute became an international problem when it decided to straddle 13th and 20th Century thinking by empowering wahhabism.

    There was a total level of shock and frustration during the Nixon-Ford-Carter years from 1973 to ’81 about how powerless America was to do anything about OPEC in general and the Saudis in particular control of world oil supplies. But people forget that virtually the first thing Reagan did after becoming president was to deregulate oil and gasoline prices, which over a period of the next few years, contributed to world oil prices plunging 70 percent from their Carter-era highs, and basically stay in that area until the start of the current century.

    With the current fracking, prices can go as low as the low-cost producer wants it — the main question at the moment is whether that’s us or the Saudis (who have way more fund-the-government overhead built into their oil prices than the federal government or frackers do).

     

    • #40
  11. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    Rodin (View Comment):

    GrannyDude (View Comment):

    Terrific O.P. and comments.

    A note about Iran, prompted by a gripping, highly-recommended account of the period by WSJ reporter Yaroslav Trofimov: At the same time that the Iranian hostage crisis was underway (think: Shiite) the forerunners of Al Qaeda seized the holiest shrine in Islam, the Grand Mosque at Mecca (think: Sunni), an event that was incredibly complex, bloody (hundreds were killed) and frightening for the monarchy whose legitimacy and retention of power was threatened as well as for the U.S., whose embassy was besieged, allies endangered and, of course, whose oil supply was under clear, explicit threat.

    In this country, we paid far more attention to the hostage crisis for obvious reasons—Americans were hostages and it dragged on and on. Still, no one seems to even remember the siege at Mecca these days, despite the far higher casualty rate and its relationship to all that followed, including the mainstreaming of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, the rise of Al Qaeda, the conflict in Afghanistan, 9/11….

    Anyway, it would be very interesting to know, or at least discuss, the relationship(s) between these two “scary-Muslim” events in the minds of American policy makers.

    This comment prompted me to do a little internet sleuthing to refresh my memory. At a time when we have become energy independent with regard to fossil-based energy and are creating magical thinkers about a future of non-fossil-based energy, it is easy to forget the tight linkage between American policy and Saudi interests in 1979. America’s environmental movement and the economics of domestic oil production was rapidly making oil importation are “go to” strategy. OPEC gladly embraced this as it conferred riches on an Arabian oligarchy. America thought it could afford those exported riches as a downpayment on a reliable commercial partner as its “westernizing” influence was portrayed on television in reports of cities in the desert springing up. OPEC became too western for American tastes with the oil shocks and embargo, but accepted it as a ploy for increasing its riches and ensuring that international relations were always to be tilted in Saudi’s favor. (American environmentalists effectively demanded it be so because of its staunch opposition to domestic production.) And so it was that a Saudi domestic dispute became an international problem when it decided to straddle 13th and 20th Century thinking by empowering wahhabism.

    This problem—if you accept it as a real problem (which I do)—is what makes me a little bit more generous about various administrations’ ME policies than I might be about others. After WW2, the devastation in Europe and the start-up of the Cold War combined to make a huge demand for energy into a geopolitical gordian knot. The CIA/Kermit Roosevelt take-down of the freely-elected president Mossadek in Iran, and the reinstallation of the Shah weren’t (just) stupid attempts at tweaking the world to make it more to American liking, but responses to a genuine fear. If the Soviets got a lock on Iranian oil, the rebuilding of Europe would grind to a halt, with disastrous results. At a time when the words “prison camp” and “secret police” evoked fresh and vivid memories, ensuring that the Soviets did not have control over Europe’s energy supplies must have felt far more important than respecting the will of the Iranian people. 

    I have become aware, in my own thinking, of how easily I can lapse into anachronism: confidently making proclamations about the way things are in, say, Greece when I haven’t set foot in that country for forty years. It might feel to me like maybe ten years ago. And even in ten years, much can change. I wonder whether the same thing happens to foreign policy establishments as the flip side of experience—a vision, but also a sort of collective emotional response for how Things Really Are gets locked in to the collective mind and becomes difficult to overcome, even with new data and new people.  Fear of the loss of Iranian oil strong enough to overwhelm other, arguably higher principles (e.g. respecting the will of the Iranian electorate) sticks, and one administration after another continues to prioritize accordingly?

    Just a thought. 

    • #41
  12. Eugene Kriegsmann Member
    Eugene Kriegsmann
    @EugeneKriegsmann

    cirby (View Comment):

    Eugene Kriegsmann (View Comment):
    Now they are harping on the one theme that, even though it was completely overturned by Mueller, has implanted itself in their psyches, Russian collusion. No one believes it other than the leading Democrats, but it is all they have, so they are clinging to it with all their might.

    Sorry, but you seem to have this 100% reversed.

    None of the top Democrats think Trump stole the election through Russian collusion. They have too many sources, have seen enough polls, and have paid for enough research to know better.

    On the other hand, a LOT of street-level Democrats and lefties believe, down to their bones, that Trump stole the election through Russian shenanigans.

    Just this morning, I saw a three-way exchange (at another site) between some lefties who were all congratulating each other for “knowing” about Russian collusion, and reinforcing the idea that the election was stolen outright.

    Pelosi and company know better, but the Democrat electorate believe worse.

    Without making too strong a disagreement, I really do think that the upper echelon Democrats do believe their own lies. They have had to convince themselves of those lies in order to get their dimwitted followers onboard. They are true believers in all of the nonsense they spout.

    I spent many years as a faculty member in Seattle Public Schools. I was subjected on an almost daily basis to the barrage of leftist BS that is their meat and potatoes. The one thing I am sure of is that those people spouting that nonsense really believed what they were saying. They simply disallowed any facts to interfere with their beliefs. They kept a pure mindset, totally immersed in the septic tank of their party platform. They believed in everything they said wholeheartedly. Whats more, they believed that any who gainsaid their assertions was guilty of heresy. The mindset of the current Democrat leadership is no different than that of the leaders of the Church during the Inquisition. They are self-convinced, and any attacks on their beliefs merely causes them to dig deeper into their own delusions. The origins of their beliefs are irrelevant to them. Once those ideas were set in motion, they took on a life and reality of their own. Pelosi and Hillary, as well, are examples of the cost of that kind of self-delusion. Pelosi is falling apart, completely and totally, mentally unstable. Her entire belief structure is being challenged, and she is unable to deal with it. That isn’t what happens to someone who cynically spouts nonsense that they themselves do not believe. It sort of reminds my of the film Downfall when Hitler is in the final stages of defeat. He crashes in on himself. Pelosi is showing the same symptoms for the same reasons. She is being proven wrong, and she can’t take it.

    • #42
  13. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    Jon1979 (View Comment):
    Don’t forget the weapon Trump does have that previous presidents haven’t, which is the amount of shale oil pouring out of Texas, New Mexico and North Dakota. Gas prices at best budged a nickle after the strike on Soleimani and the Iranian rocket launches on the U.S. bases in Iraq, and barely budged last summer when Iran hit the Saudi refineries with their drone strikes.

    Can’t overemphasize this.  We no longer need them.  The 1967 oil embargo failed because we were still exporting at the time.  1979 was different, partly because of  Carter’s fecklessness.

    • #43
  14. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    Franco (View Comment):
    These Never Trump Republicans held special pride that, at least their guy or gal would always do the ‘right thing’ and give way to a Democrat, who would immediately do all the wrong things, but at least they could not be held responsible, since they themselves weren’t – God forbid -Democrats.

    Gandhi’s advice to England in 1940;

    “I appeal to every Briton, wherever he may be now, to accept the method of non-violence instead of that of war, for the adjustment of relations between nations and other matters…I do not want Britain to be defeated, nor do I want her to be victorious in a trial of brute strength…I venture to present you with a nobler and braver way worthier of the bravest soldier. I want you to fight Nazism without arms, or, if I am to maintain military terminology, with non-violent arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite our great leader and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them …my non-violence demands universal love, and you are not a small part of it. It is that love which has prompted my appeal to you.”

    Gandhi

    • #44
  15. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    GrannyDude (View Comment):
    The CIA/Kermit Roosevelt take-down of the freely-elected president Mossadek in Iran, and the reinstallation of the Shah

    Not quite accurate.  Mossadegh was not elected to be Prime Minister by the people.

    Misconception #2: Mohammad Mossadegh was a democratically elected Prime Minister

    While Mossadegh was elected to the Majles (the Iranian Parliament) by democratic means (Iran at the time was not a democracy by any means, though some aspects of it were democratic in nature), the office of Prime Minister was nominated from amongst the Majles deputies by the Shah. In turn, the Majles members either voted for or against the nomination (In his initial appointment Mossadegh was approved by a tally of 79-12). Mossadegh enjoyed massive popularity at different times during his political career, but his position as Prime Minister was never due to a nationwide poll (he was PM on two separate occasions).

    https://nationalinterest.org/feature/six-myths-about-the-coup-against-irans-mossadegh-11173

     

    • #45
  16. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    MichaelKennedy (View Comment):

    Franco (View Comment):
    These Never Trump Republicans held special pride that, at least their guy or gal would always do the ‘right thing’ and give way to a Democrat, who would immediately do all the wrong things, but at least they could not be held responsible, since they themselves weren’t – God forbid -Democrats.

    Gandhi’s advice to England in 1940;

    “I appeal to every Briton, wherever he may be now, to accept the method of non-violence instead of that of war, for the adjustment of relations between nations and other matters…I do not want Britain to be defeated, nor do I want her to be victorious in a trial of brute strength…I venture to present you with a nobler and braver way worthier of the bravest soldier. I want you to fight Nazism without arms, or, if I am to maintain military terminology, with non-violent arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite our great leader and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them …my non-violence demands universal love, and you are not a small part of it. It is that love which has prompted my appeal to you.”

    Gandhi

    Gandhi was a nasty piece of work.

    And that’s an amazing quote.

    • #46
  17. Spin Inactive
    Spin
    @Spin

    It isn’t clear to me that the Democrats fear Trump.  I think they just hate him.  Hate and fear are not the same things.  Now, I can’t really speak to what the likes of Nancy Pelosi feel.  But here in liberal country?  No liberal fears him as a political opponent.  They do fear he’s going to bring about some sort of apocalypse.  But mostly they just hate him.  

    • #47
  18. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    MichaelKennedy (View Comment):

    GrannyDude (View Comment):
    The CIA/Kermit Roosevelt take-down of the freely-elected president Mossadek in Iran, and the reinstallation of the Shah

    Not quite accurate. Mossadegh was not elected to be Prime Minister by the people.

    Misconception #2: Mohammad Mossadegh was a democratically elected Prime Minister

    While Mossadegh was elected to the Majles (the Iranian Parliament) by democratic means (Iran at the time was not a democracy by any means, though some aspects of it were democratic in nature), the office of Prime Minister was nominated from amongst the Majles deputies by the Shah. In turn, the Majles members either voted for or against the nomination (In his initial appointment Mossadegh was approved by a tally of 79-12). Mossadegh enjoyed massive popularity at different times during his political career, but his position as Prime Minister was never due to a nationwide poll (he was PM on two separate occasions).

    https://nationalinterest.org/feature/six-myths-about-the-coup-against-irans-mossadegh-11173

     

    ah! my shorthand was misleading—sorry! and thanks for the correction

     

    • #48
  19. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    Eugene Kriegsmann (View Comment):
    That isn’t what happens to someone who cynically spouts nonsense that they themselves do not believe. It sort of reminds my of the film Downfall when Hitler is in the final stages of defeat. He crashes in on himself.

    One of the strange things about Hitler and his followers—and about the Khmer Rouge, and the Cultural Revolutionaries in China—is that they weren’t stupid or uneducated people. Yet they believed things that were obviously, self-evidently idiotic. It’s an unnerving and unnervingly-common phenomenon. 

    • #49
  20. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

     This helps…maybe?

    Poor old Pete Buttigieg is finding out that “live by the sword, die by the sword” is a thing. This is Pete, attempting to have a good faith conversation with #BLM protesters at an Iowa event: 

    “I think your facts are a little wrong, so I’d love a chance to talk with you about it, but I’d like for us to talk about it respectfully.”

    Yeah. Good luck with that, Pete.

    I wonder how many Democrats are recalling the #BLM protesters seizing the stage at one of Bernie’s rallies? 

    • #50
  21. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    GrannyDude (View Comment):

    “I think your facts are a little wrong, so I’d love a chance to talk with you about it, but I’d like for us to talk about it respectfully.”

    Yeah. Good luck with that, Pete.

    And he’s a Democrat speaking to a group of Democrats.

    He should go to a college when a Republican speaks to a group of Democrat students, and urge the audience to “talk about it respectfully.”  That would be awesome!  I’d tune in!

    • #51
  22. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    Spin (View Comment):

    It isn’t clear to me that the Democrats fear Trump. I think they just hate him. Hate and fear are not the same things. Now, I can’t really speak to what the likes of Nancy Pelosi feel. But here in liberal country? No liberal fears him as a political opponent. They do fear he’s going to bring about some sort of apocalypse. But mostly they just hate him.

    I think it’s pretty simple. Liberals fear what Trump and the Republican Senate can do to the judicial branch. Liberals have used the courts to implement what they can’t get through legislatures for years. Trump and the Republican Senate can possibly put an end to that tactic.

    • #52
  23. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    The truly frightening thing is that even though Trump’s temperament and intellectual depth are demonstrably not optimal, he is nevertheless vastly more effective and more reality-based than his predecessors and exhibits better judgment that the vast majority of his permanent professional advisors. 

    A rich TV star can walk into DC off the street (literally) and be better at governing that the entirety of careerist government/politics types.  How bad does our established leadership cadre suck?  No wonder they will go any lengths not to be revealed for what they are.

    • #53
  24. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    The truly frightening thing is that even though Trump’s temperament and intellectual depth are demonstrably not optimal, he is nevertheless vastly more effective and more reality-based than his predecessors and exhibits better judgment that the vast majority of his permanent professional advisors.

    A rich TV star can walk into DC off the street (literally) and be better at governing that the entirety of careerist government/politics types. How bad does our established leadership cadre suck? No wonder they will go any lengths not to be revealed for what they are.

    They aren’t there to “govern” or secure the blessings of liberty for posterity. They are there to network and advance their careers. Trump is there to take names and kick a$$. His motivations may not be entirely pure either, but I’m enjoying the show anyway. 

    • #54
  25. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    How bad does our established leadership cadre suck?

    Bad enough to appoint David Kris to clean cover up the problems at the FISC and make sure that the abuse of power that happened with Trump never happens again is ready for the next Democrat who takes the White House to use.

    It’s the FISC saying [expletive]OAD to Trump, to Devin Nunes, and to the Fourth Amendment (and to the First and Second, too.)

    Did I say to Trump?

     

    • #55
  26. Steve C. Member
    Steve C.
    @user_531302

    Eugene Kriegsmann (View Comment):
    No one believes it other than the leading Democrats, but it is all they have, so they are clinging to it with all their might

    They don’t  believe it. Any weapon to hand. We’ve progressed from “politics ain’t bean bag” to Trump delenda est.

    • #56
  27. Spin Inactive
    Spin
    @Spin

    Django (View Comment):

    Spin (View Comment):

    It isn’t clear to me that the Democrats fear Trump. I think they just hate him. Hate and fear are not the same things. Now, I can’t really speak to what the likes of Nancy Pelosi feel. But here in liberal country? No liberal fears him as a political opponent. They do fear he’s going to bring about some sort of apocalypse. But mostly they just hate him.

    I think it’s pretty simple. Liberals fear what Trump and the Republican Senate can do to the judicial branch. Liberals have used the courts to implement what they can’t get through legislatures for years. Trump and the Republican Senate can possibly put an end to that tactic.

    So you’ve said what I said:  they fear what they think is some doomsday world as the result of his Presidency.  

    • #57
  28. Steve C. Member
    Steve C.
    @user_531302

    GrannyDude (View Comment):
    In this country, we paid far more attention to the hostage crisis for obvious reasons—Americans were hostages and it dragged on and on. Still, no one seems to even remember the siege at Mecca these days, despite the far higher casualty rate and its relationship to all that followed, including the mainstreaming of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, the rise of Al Qaeda, the conflict in Afghanistan, 9/11….

    I bet the French remember. The Saudis were forced to turn to French Commandos to retake the holiest shrine in Islam. The commandos even “converted” to avoid committing a sacrilege. Quelle embarrassment!

    But I think you are wrong about the expansion of Wahhabism. There has always been a devil’s bargain between the royal family and the clerics. 

    • #58
  29. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    Spin (View Comment):

    Django (View Comment):

    Spin (View Comment):

    It isn’t clear to me that the Democrats fear Trump. I think they just hate him. Hate and fear are not the same things. Now, I can’t really speak to what the likes of Nancy Pelosi feel. But here in liberal country? No liberal fears him as a political opponent. They do fear he’s going to bring about some sort of apocalypse. But mostly they just hate him.

    I think it’s pretty simple. Liberals fear what Trump and the Republican Senate can do to the judicial branch. Liberals have used the courts to implement what they can’t get through legislatures for years. Trump and the Republican Senate can possibly put an end to that tactic.

    So you’ve said what I said: they fear what they think is some doomsday world as the result of his Presidency.

    More-or-less, just a bit more specific regarding how he will bring the apocalypse about. 

    • #59
  30. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    I suppose we can look forward to Iranian interference in our Presidential election to get Trump re-elected in 2020 as the Russians did in 2016 . . .

    Sorry, just got back from a great football weekend with the guys.  Now I have to come home and see the Dems and MSM are still praising the late General Salami.  No doubt they’d kiss his ring if they could, given it was about the only thing left of the thug . . .

    • #60
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