Increasingly menacing-trump rallies

[CeMar_Clone]

"Many of the statements are not only untrue but are repeated from event to event, despite the industry of real-time Trump fact-checking and truth-squadding that now exists. This summer, the Washington Post’s Fact Checker looked at all the statements in one rally and determined that seventy-six per cent of the ninety-eight factual assertions Trump made were untrue, misleading, or baseless. Since then, Trump seems not only undeterred but to be stepping up his pace. He claimed that Justice Kavanaugh was No. 1 in his class at Yale and Yale Law School in at least three of his events over the past week, despite Yale not even calculating class rankings. On Wednesday, Trump repeated several of his greatest-hits fallacies, such as asserting that fifty-two per cent of women supported him in 2016 (that number was forty-two per cent), and that numerous new steel-manufacturing plants are being opened (none are), and that “clean, beautiful coal” is coming back (it isn’t)...."

The biggest difference between Trump and any other American President, however, is not the bragging. It’s the cult of personality he has built around himself and which he insists upon at his rallies. Political leaders are called onstage to praise the President in terms that would make a feudal courtier blush, and they’re not empty words. These are the kinds of tributes I have heard in places like Uzbekistan, but never before in America. “Is he not the best President we have ever had?” the Mississippi senator Cindy Hyde-Smith enthused. (Trump then praised her for voting “with me one hundred per cent of the time.”) In Erie on Wednesday, a Republican congressman, Michael Kelly, gave the most sycophantic speech of the ones I listened to this month. Trump, he yelled to the crowd, is “the strongest President we have seen in our lifetime.” Addressing Trump, he said, “You are the best! You are the best!” Trump did not need to leave his “luxurious” life behind for the indignities of political combat, but he did. “I am so grateful,” Kelly concluded, “that an American citizen came out of nowhere to take the reins and reform and retake this nation...”

Much of the coverage of these events tends to be theatre criticism, or news stories about a single inflammatory line or two, rating Trump’s performance or puzzling over the appeal to his followers. But what the President of the United States is actually saying is extraordinary, regardless of whether the television cameras are carrying it live. It’s not just the whoppers or the particular outrage riffs that do get covered, either. It’s the hate, and the sense of actual menace that the President is trying to convey to his supporters. Democrats aren’t just wrong in the manner of traditional partisan differences; they are scary, bad, evil, radical, dangerous. Trump and Trump alone stands between his audiences and disaster.

I listen because I think we are making a mistake by dismissing him, by pretending the words of the most powerful man in the world are meaningless. They do have consequences. They are many, and they are worrisome. In what he says to the world, the President is, as Ed Luce wrote in the Financial Times this week, “creating the space to do things which were recently unthinkable.” It’s not a reality show; it’s real."

How about when Obama says America Sucks?

 

[Menace Sockeyes]

How about when Obama says America Sucks?

 

[FlickShagwell]

How about when Obama says America Sucks?

 

[obfuscating]

I haven't seen Democrats this pissed off since Republicans freed their slaves...

 

[ICHawk-I]

Where was it that kicking someone (in today's political context) was an innocent statement?much like asking where's booth when you need him or who is taking one for the team?

Except that he went on to say that "kicking" meant "getting tough". But you don't care to hear that part of the statement, you prefer the inflammatory one that gets your side up on arms. It's funny how the right is going out of their way to point out when the other guy say something mean yet defend a guy who says horrible things on a daily basis. Is that some sort of way to subconsciously counterbalance Trumps rhetoric in their minds? The whole "you do it too" argument?

 

[obfuscating]

Except that he went on to say that "kicking" meant "getting tough". But you don't care to hear that part of the statement, you prefer the inflammatory one that gets your side up on arms. It's funny how the right is going out of their way to point out when the other guy say something mean yet defend a guy who says horrible things on a daily basis. Is that some sort of way to subconsciously counterbalance Trumps rhetoric in their minds? The whole "you do it too" argument?

I did hear it, but it came afterwards - why not simply "take the high road" and not even say something that can (and almost always is) taken for what is said? I thought the Dems were the elite, educated group - seems they can't help but stoop...

The whole "you too" argument has been done for decades - or you haven't been paying attention...I thought the Dems were all about looking at history, it appears to only be history other then their own...

 

[ICHawk-I]

I did hear it, but it came afterwards - why not simply "take the high road" and not even say something that can (and almost always is) taken for what is said? I thought the Dems were the elite, educated group - seems they can't help but stoop...

The whole "you too" argument has been done for decades - or you haven't been paying attention...I thought the Dems were all about looking at history, it appears to only be history other then their own...

But your whataboutism only seems to go one way. I don't see you calling out the right for doing the same thing, only the left.

 

[obfuscating]

But your whataboutism only seems to go one way. I don't see you calling out the right for doing the same thing, only the left.

Dem shuffles deck and pulls out... whataboutism.

Seems that you all pull that card out yet fail to see that you all do the same damn thing, I think that is called "whatthefukism".

I have pointed out that others have done it - doesn't make it right,but the Dems sure seem to forget about it when they did it and want to point out when someone else did it..

 

[ICHawk-I]

Dem shuffles deck and pulls out... whataboutism.

Seems that you all pull that card out yet fail to see that you all do the same damn thing, I think that is called "whatthefukism".

I have pointed out that others have done it - doesn't make it right,but the Dems sure seem to forget about it when they did it and want to point out when someone else did it..

I agree its a bipartisan thing, and I don't like it when either side does it. It won't change and it's made for media sound clips for those who only take in the news in small bites. I just get tired of those who defend their party doing it and call foul when the opposing party does.

 

[obfuscating]

I agree its a bipartisan thing, and I don't like it when either side does it. It won't change and it's made for media sound clips for those who only take in the news in small bites. I just get tired of those who defend their party doing it and call foul when the opposing party does.

Apologies for not holding the bucket for both parties... I will try to do better.

 

[ICHawk-I]

Apologies for not holding the bucket for both parties... I will try to do better.

I'm not asking you to carry water for both parties. I'm just asking you to be consistent with your criticism.

 

[obfuscating]

I'm not asking you to carry water for both parties. I'm just asking you to be consistent with your criticism.

Are you offering to reciprocate?

 

[ICHawk-I]

Are you offering to reciprocate?

Of course I am, and I try to do that with an open mind.

Think about how much more accountable our politicians would be if we quit redefining "right" and "wrong" based on who you supported. Things like lying, stealing, corruption and abuse (of any kind) should not be partisan issues.