Russia and the emails: Trump needs a sarcasm tag
The current Trump brouhaha is about his statements calling on the Russians to find Hillary’s missing emails. I think it’s clear that it was sarcasm with an extra edge; you can listen to what he said here and decide for yourself, but for me the tipoff is that Trump added, “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
I’m not a Trump defender; it’s actually very rare that I find myself in that position. But I think his sarcasm here was fairly clear. Perhaps the MSM and the Democrats have lost their sense of humor (that’s sarcasm too, by the way), or perhaps they just don’t have one when it comes to Trump. I can sympathize there, because I strain to have one, too. But a joke is a joke, and that was a joke.
What it was, however, is the sort of joke presidential nominees don’t usually make. And there’s an excellent reason for that: it’s inappropriate and unpresidential. Trump, however, is a completely different kind of presidential nominee. And in some ways he’s a lot harder to counter because he plays by very different rules:
Instead of ignoring the story or simply scoffing at the obvious distracting attack, the Clinton campaign has fallen into the same kind of trap all those Republican candidates Trump defeated in the primaries fell for: misdirection. Most of the news media seems to have fallen for it, too, as the tone of most of the stories covering Trump’s comments seem to indicate this could be the serious gaffe everyone was expecting Trump to make in this election.
Trump’s ability to steal headlines with outrageous comments and survive the process is well-documented, but no one seems to have come up with an antidote for it. And, as for trying to make Russia into some kind of villain here and thus tainting Trump for any connection to that country or it’s leader Vladimir Putin, ask Mitt Romney how much the voters care about Russia. He found out the answer the hard way in 2012, didn’t he?
I have long thought that these shenanigans will not advantage Trump in the general in the same way they did in the primary season, or at least not enough to allow him to win the election. I’ve become more doubtful about that, although I still think it’s true. I guess the only thing to do is wait and see.
“inappropriate and unpresidential” – Neo
trump’s “joke” carries those characteristics for a reason…
It sends the wrong kind of message, to us and to our enemies.
Were it a one-off, then, yes, it is a poorly considered joke.
But, in a string of such things over these past many months, one has to wonder just what is going on inside that head (a game of talking point pinball?).
I have become increasing enamored of the way Trump masterfully commands the press and the national dialogue. He simply refuses to play on the turf established over the last half-century by the left. Because he is really one of the first to do so, they have no idea how to counter or deal with him. Gingrich can also do this but without the media presence or impact that Trump has.
In his Commentary article yesterday (https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/campaigns-elections/irresponsible-donald-trump-outfoxes-dems/) Jonathan Tobin notes:
I can’t think of a more clueless statement. It typifies why the pundit class has been so wrong for so long about Trump’s impact.
If Trump truly believes that Russia is out to damage Hillary Clinton why would he announce himself as a serious obstacle to Russia’s geopolitical aims (when you’re opponent –Clinton– is committing suicide, don’t interfere). Wouldn’t that lead the Putin to help rather than hinder Clinton in her election bid? The real question is whether Trump is pulling a “Becket”; that is, seeming to befriend and be no obstacle to Russian aims during his campaign, but then, like Becket, as the Archbishop of Canterbury in opposition to Henry II, is loyal to the office he holds (if elected).
Trump may not intellectually be a Becket, but he has shown himself smart enough to out-campaign 16 competitors and currently seems to be pummeling the leftist opposition at will. He is like Patton’s Third Army running roughshod over the enemy on their way to relieve Bastogne. Why should he change tactics that have proven successful thus far?
IMO this is precisely what the right has lacked in virtually all of its standard bearers. To paraphrase Lincoln about the heavily drinking U.S. Grant: We can’t spare this man. He fights!
“when you’re opponent —Clinton— is committing suicide, don’t interfere”
“when your opponent . . .”
Sorry. Fixed it. (My preview button stopped working when I started with Windows 8.1. Anyone else have that problem?)
Neo, I think you need to embrace the idea that Hill’s not the usual run of Presidential candidate either. This whole business with the emails and with Comey giving her a pass calls for one of two reactions, anger or ridicule. I think ridicule in carefully calibrated doses is likely to be more effective over the long haul.
And the anger/ ridicule choice is true of quite a bit that’s happened in last eight years.
The Trump guys are with him no matter what. Today’s outrage is just the flavor of the day. It’ll compile for some and make no difference for others.
T:
Like von Paulus running roughshod on his way to Stalingrad.
Time will tell.
OM,
You are correct; time will tell. I claim no powers of prognostication here, but I feel very certain that Hillary Clinton is or will be no Russian winter.
I do think, however, that the parallel with George Patton during WW II is quite apt. He was one of the greatest field generals in military history. To my knowledge he engaged and overcame more enemy divisions than any other military leader in WW II. People, even his own soldiers either loved him or hated him. The soldier slap incident was grossly overplayed and detested by the media and his own superiors, but my understanding is that much of the mail he received from the parents of soldiers commended him for insisting that such soldiers perform their duties alongside their own sons.
This seems to be a very close parallel to the current Trump phenomenon.
BTW, just for the record, Trump was not my first choice (I really would have much rather seen Fiorina or Walker be running at this point), but I also think that seeing Trump in action, neither Fiorina nor Walker could not win regardless of any bonafide conservative stance. I see Walker especially to be more like Romney temperamentally, and I truly believe that the right needs, at this point in time, a brawler to initiate the break of the Gramscian left.
But Trump is the choice we are given and my vote Trump will be mostly a vote against Clinton which I can easily cast without holding my nose.
. . . and while I won’t hold my nose while voting for Trump, I will cross my fingers and hope that he surprisingly meets or outperforms conservative expectations.
With all his warts, Trump has an uncanny ability to put bees into the underwear of his opponents.
Just look at this instance. With the dems’ loud assistance, he put her emails front and center, and with the dems going nuts and calling it treason, etc., he highlights what a bunch of immature, hysterical knee-jerkers they are.
The prospect of him doing this sort of thing to her in a debate with her is delicious. Given how hard she has avoided encountering live opposition, her team must be dreading the prospect.
My guy was Walker, but I increasingly think that Trump was and is the best candidate with regard to disrupting a process that would otherwise guarantee Hillary the presidency.
What it was for the MSM and DNC is an opportunity, to both twist Trump’s joke into portraying it as, ‘the first presidential candidate to call for a foreign power to conduct cyber-espionage against America’ and, to distract the public from the possible content of those emails.
Of course, the inconvenient truth is that Trump only joked that the Russians should release any of Hillary’s ‘missing’ emails that they hacked long ago, since the FBI has long had Hillary’s server hard drives in custody, disconnected from the internet, thus making it impossible for anyone to hack into them.
It’s all about ‘proving’ that Trump is the bad guy and Hillary the only choice.
Now this I like. This is exactly the sort of thing that Republicans should have been doing all along to the loathesome lefty press. It shows them, clearly, for what they are: A steno pool for whatever “progressive” cause or candidate is at issue in the moment. I also like that Trump does not hesitate to call them that to their faces. More, faster, louder, please. Neo, they don’t deserve respectful and “appropriate” and America doesn’t respect that anymore. Which is sad but it’s the reality.
“when you’re opponent —Clinton— is committing suicide, don’t interfere”
But it’s Clinton the Incompetent who’s been helped along every step of the way so, yeah, go ahead, step in, help her achieve.
You can’t win if you don’t
playfight.Trump fights.
60% Trump wins.
I agree with Stubbs. While we can attest to our leftist family members that we didn’t support Trump, this kind of thing is perfect for shining the light on their candidate. Did so just last night with a family member that ended his statement to us (knowing we value our faith) with WWJD (ha!). No comeback for our statement that the voters leaving us with 2 poisoned chalices (Ace’s description) to choose from, and the proven record of Hillary, using governing authority in the most vile way possible (a man blamed for the uprising in Benghazi sitting in jail so that an election outcome won’t be affected)–Hillary a proven liar in this case. Say your worst about Trump. How is that worse than this? Crickets. And we can go on and on with our Hillary examples, can’t we?
I am not a Trump fan. Will have to hold my nose in order to vote for him, if in fact I do.
But Trump’s comment seems to me to be completely unproblematic. We are all one nation? Bull. If it is a problem between the Dems and others. let it grow and become an explosive one that shatters this fake moral truce between modern liberal collectivists and real human beings, right down to its foundations
When a pack of left-wing globalist collectivists starts yelping about patriotism, and the like, the very mildest urge I have is to laugh.
Some may remember that onetime Governor of Michigan and all around piece of work, Jennifer Granholm’s accusing Republicans of treason for “talking down” the economy.
http://www.mackinac.org/7163
Of course the charges of treason she levels don’t stop there. This Stalinist she-hound started baying about treason in the Huffington Post a few years latter.
You know, I have generally been very uncomfortable with the occasional assertions here by some annoyed conservatives who are spouting off to the effect that at some point a “call to arms” will be necessary which might even turn out to be more literal than figurative.
But when these leftoids begin to talk of treason as if they are not already the morally alien subversives and degenerates they are, but instead peers entitled to some kind of sociopolitical solidarity, why, then, even I can grant that poor conservative the justice of his hyperbole.
Apologies for using a figure of speech, “holding my nose” that has been run to death recently, and was used by another just a few comments earlier.
I should take more care, both in reading the threads through and in constructing comments.
“With all his warts, Trump has an uncanny ability to put bees into the underwear of his opponents. ” [Stubbs @ 12:49]
Essentially he out-Alinskys them. IMO this is really the first time they have had their own tactics turned back on them. They don’t like it and don’t know how to counter them. It requires someone who’s publicly insensitive to their criticism and their gnashing of teeth.
Now some would say that Trump’s thin skin belies that, but I don’t agree. Trump doesn’t tolerate attacks and rabidly opposes them but that’s not the same as , for instance, Obama’s thin skin which is clearly tied to Obama’s own self-esteem. Trump’s self esteem is tied to his multiple successes in business, retail and media, not to charges made by his adversaries.
The real secret has always been that invulnerability to Alinsky is, in great part, a state of mind. The more one wants to be accepted, the less one’s ability to stave off the criticism of the opposition; this, IMO, has always been the right’s fundamental Achilles heel. IMO Trump doesn’t care about being accepted; Trump cares about winning. That’s very different.
Megan McArdle, a writer I have greatly admired for over a decade now also misunderstood just how effective Trump’s mocking of the Democrats was in this regard. It was an absolutely killing thrust. The only way it could possibly backfire on Trump is if the DNC e-mails weren’t authentic, but we already know they are based solely on the swords that were fallen on by DNC management after the Wikileak.
While Trump’s riposte yesterday was deliberate and well-designed, consider what would have happened if, lets say, Marco Rubio had made such a comment off-the-cuff- Rubio would have spent a week walking back the comment and apologizing profusely for making what would be, at worst, a simple joke. Trump understands the power of initiative. He is the first candidate Republicans have nominated since Reagan who understood this.
Trump actually made me laugh. The ‘smartest’ woman in the world, foreign policy genius, defender of chilldren and the other victims of those mean old conservatives, yet somehow she and her party are played as stupid by Russian hackers. Djt was right to make fun of her. If he can control himself, not likely, and refrain from making comments about her face and pantsuits, he’s onto something with this joke.
Next, djt should comment that hrc can’t take a joke because she is ashamed of her own incompetence and that of her party
“Rubio would have spent a week walking back the comment and apologizing profusely for making what would be, at worst, a simple joke.” [Yancey Ward @ 2:18]
Yup! I repeat from above (@2:12) alongside Yancy Ward’s observation”
“The real secret has always been that invulnerability to Alinsky is, in great part, a state of mind. The more one wants to be accepted, the less one’s ability to stave off the criticism of the opposition; this, IMO, has always been the right’s fundamental Achilles’ heel.”
Again, Trump refuses to respond to the leftist rules, instead he responds with a “Attack me??!!Let’s see how you like it! . . . “The shoe pinches when it’s on the other foot doesn’t it?”
There are hundred’s of thousands of people out there silently saying to themselves: “Finally!”
T: ” (My preview button stopped working when I started with Windows 8.1. Anyone else have that problem?)” The same for me. 🙁
I agree with you, T. Trump may not do it deftly, but he is his own media quick reaction team to jump on lies, distortions, and innuendoes before they become the conventional wisdom. That is what the GOP has needed to do for many years, but they (with a few exceptions like Gingrich) have been afraid of the MSM. Gingrich would be able to parry the MSM more deftly, but the blunt force of Trump seems to be working and it is maddening to those who are used to the MSM dictating the narrative.
To “T”
Great analysis. Drawing on history and using Becket, Gen Patton and Gen Grant, was a brilliant way to illustrate that point.
I really enjoy reading intelligent conservatives!
And to add to the other comments: I was listening to Trump’s press conference live and that comment about the list emails came in the heels of some intense, repetitive questions about Russia!! Russia! So Trump is standing there answering question after question about the dopey rumor, (ha, trumped up charge) that somehow he was colluding w the Russians, or the Ruskies were helping him, to expose the nefarious goings on at the DNC in order to hurt Mrs Clinton.
Trump begins to have had enough. You can hear it in his voice. That is is you have half a brain and / or are not suffering from TDS.
So, in the true, rascally way he has of tweaking people, he lets loose with this joke. Of course the joke had that extra bit of stuff because people still are incredulous over Mrs Clinton’s having illegally deleted those 33,000 emails.
But in context, listening live, it was howlingly funny! At least to me it was.
And like Lincoln said of Grant, he fights.
Go Trump/Pence! Keep that woman out of the Oval Office!!
Trump is chaotic, which catches others unprepared. That can be fun to watch. It’s not a qualification to be president, however.
Just one more irony.
@DNW – yes, treason in the mouths of Democrats often turns out to be “things that are bad for our party.” They do equate America’s fortunes with their own rather often, don’t they?
“Trump is chaotic, which catches others unprepared. . . . It’s not a qualification to be president, however.” [AVI @ 2:36]
Catching others unprepared is not a qualification; it’s a tactic; e.g., on 9/11 the Islamists caught us unprepared for the use of airliners as flying bombs, it qualified them for nothing.
For Trump it is currently a campaign tactic. Whether it would be a tactic in his administration is to be seen. I, personally, have no problem with catching foreign leaders (think Iran) unprepared in negotiations. Quelle horreur! that an American President should unabashedly and unapologetically put the interests of the American people before those of the Iranians, Germans or Afghanis, etc., (/sarc off). As opposed to Obama and Kerry selling our country down the river it might even be a welcome change of pace.
Stubbs — Hell, Trump doesn’t even have to debate the Evil Empress. He just has to stand up and say, “Benghazi. The e-mails. Libya. Syria. Fracking. Coal. ISIS,” sit down, and watch her tie herself into knots trying to defend her actions.
Richard Saunders,
That’s a great observation. When read alongside Yancy Ward’s comment about Rubio walking back a joke, it would appear that the tables have turned. Now (if true) it’s the left that is defending it’s position against charges from the right (or from a “Republican” at least). I think I’m going to invest in popcorn for the next 3 months.
Also, Jayne (above @ 2:34), thank you for the kind words.
Trump may be an idiot savant of sorts. These off-the-cuff “gaffes” always seem to end up confounding his enemies and working to his benefit, but I’m not sure he’s doing it with premeditation. He may be more like Chauncey Gardener or Forrest Gump than Huey Long (or Hitler). In any case, he certainly seems to have some kind of “knack”, no?
There are many, many things about Mr. Trump that I don’t like but I must say that I have most sincerely enjoyed this aspect of his candidacy. And I hope there is much more of this to come.
“These off-the-cuff “gaffes” always seem to end up confounding his enemies and working to his benefit, . . . .” [Carl in Atlanta @ 3:18]
There comes a point when, because of the consistency with which this happens that one must, at least, ask the question: Is Trump much more intelligent than he lets on?
I am reminded of a scene in the old Rockford Files< series where James Garner is remarking to his young nephew: “I bet people underestimate you all the time,” to which the nephew replies: “I count on it!”
The democrat pollster Pat Caddell (one of the last honest democrats) is amazed that the MSM & DNC have walked right into Trump’s ‘trap’. I’m uncertain that Trump intended to entrap the dems and MSM but I agree with Caddell that any continued attention to Hillary’s emails, deleted or otherwise… is not in her interest. Especially, as its so easily refutted.
GB,
Link?
No one has mentioned the other part of Trump’s act yesterday.
When asked about Russia annexing the Crimea, Trump said he would have to think about it.
Then he said NATO was “obsolete.” The Baltic states and others neighbors of Russia must be comforted by that.
And then finally Trump said the Geneva Convention is “20 years” out of date.
Such a font of wisdom and stability. /S
But then again he isn’t HRC so no worries.
Another observation is that Bill Clinton’s speech, which reviewed their life and her ‘achievements’, somehow overlooked her wonderful involvement with the Clinton Foundation…
Which turns out to have highly questionable connections not just with repressive M.E. regimes but also with Boko Haram…
It seems that when Hillary was SecState she blocked it from being declared a terrorist organization, despite it slaughtering in the name of Allah more people than any other. She did so to protect one of her biggest donor’s illicit African oil connections. Connections that also covertly fund Boko Haram.
Money and donations to her foundation were unsurprisingly her motivation. How long till a PAC highlights this in ads? Crooked, corrupt, murderous Hillary with far more blood and rape on her hands than we knew.
She has no shame because she’s incapable of shame, having no detectable conscience…
T,
Sorry, when commenting from my tablet, I don’t know how to copy and paste links. So I got off my lazy tookus and used my chromebook.
“Pat Caddell: Democrats ‘Walked Right into the Trap’ Donald Trump Baited with Hillary Clinton’s Email”
“Hillary Obstructed Boko Haram’s Terror Designation as Her Donors Cashed In”
OM–“But then again he isn’t HRC so no worries.” Who said, “No worries”? The chance with Trump is that the Press, Congress and the Supreme Court will figure in favor of the Republic. As the mother of a Marine, you’ll have to understand my weighting Hillary’s behavior WITH THE REIGNS OF POWER, more highly than Trump’s stupid comments before he takes office with an assembled team around him. Again, 2 poisoned chalices. But anyone that can excuse what we know about Hillary, too long to even detail–and mind you with carte blanche privileges with the press and other branches, with what we suspect about Trump, well, I don’t even know what to do with that.
OM,
A viable argument can be made in support of every one of those assertions. The Crimea has long been associated with Russia. America is NATO and always have been but now the Pentagon reports that our ability to wage a two-front war is at best questionable, which is an indication that NATO is now a ‘paper tiger’.
And the Baltic States know it because arms without the will to use them are empty assurances. So they are indeed nervous… at the prospect of a Clinton Presidency that promises to continue Obama’s disastrous policies.
While the Geneva Conventions are used to protect terrorists, despite their clear exclusion, so at the least the Conventions need updating.
GB:
Amazing how far you will carry his water.
SharonW:
May God bless and protect your son. There is a lot of wishing Trump to be many things that he has shown no evidenced to be, but we all know he is not HRC.
Thank you, OM. He will complete his 8 years this October. Then a return to civilian life.
GB:
Andrew Klavan’s comment on Trump’s presser yesterday
“a lying demagogue making deals with the Russians.”
BTW, Klavan will probably vote for Trump.
https://soundcloud.com/andrewklavanshow
Thank you OM for providing an excellent example of how you avoid responding to specifics and instead make an accusation of ‘carrying water’. Have you the honesty to admit it?
“Making deals with the russians”, an accusation that ignores that Hillary has to be Putin’s preference.
I’ve got work to do instead of point out fleas and flaws in your knowledge. And then you presume to know what is in Putin’s mind in order to defend Trump, that HRC “has to be Putin’s preference.” Telling.
“Making deals with the Russians.” Wasn’t it Obama who told the President of Russia that he’d have more flexibilty after the [2012] elections?
I don’t have to know the specifics of Putin’s mind, to know that he will prefer an appeasing President over an unpredictable President, who when faced with conflict, reacts aggressively.
And, by all means, point out the fleas and flaws in my comments, even a fool has something to teach.
A fool who now claims to know his preferences of Putin; keep digging your own hole.
Yes Paul, like the deal Obama just made with Putin, giving him a free hand in Syria. So much for a red line. Obama is now friends with Assad, unofficially of course.
So OM you dispute that Hillary will not appease? You dispute that Putin would be uncomfortable with an aggressive, unpredictable American President? Perhaps you dispute Trump’s unpredictability? His tendency to react to conflict with aggression?
Watch out for that sink hole opening beneath your feet.
You don’t need to know specifics of Putin’s mind but you can “know” how he prefer HRC over DJT. You must “know” a lot about those other two minds to make blanket assertions regarding their response to “conflict.”
We seem to have some clues as to the Trumper tantrum response to conflict, sue, threaten to sue. defame, lie….
Putin is know to have people murdered, and probably sent to the kinder gentler gulag. I’m “sure” Putin is worried about a man who praises him and is caving already.
So much to learn from your knowledge. /s
It also is NOT presidential to give your political opponent the middle finger; but, Obama did that to McCain and the crowd loved it and folks STILL voted for him.
So, “not being very presidential” went out a few years ago.
And, yes, despite my not liking Trump either (I will vote for him because I “like” Hillary even less) I thought it was sarcasm as well.
I mean, it isn’t like Trump told the Russians after the election he will be able to give them more favorable terms or anything like that.
I wonder if the price list is in those 30,000 e-mails. You know:
$1 billion of foreign aid ………………….. $25 million
Getting dictator off sanctions list ………….$5 million
Export permit for airplanes to Iran…….$37.5 million
Purchase of 20% of US U238 capacity…..$20 million
Etc.
No wonder the Dems are so hysterical!
GB:
And did Trump follow up with his birther law suit? Paper tiger.
Paul in Boston and GB
I stand corrected, Andrew Klavan played the tape of Obama promising flexibility to the Russians after the 2012 election. So it was the other “lying demagogue making deals with the Russians.”
Trump isn’t the elected demagogue in chief yet, but he is a liar, and has undermined NATO and our European allies already. What a start! But he isn’t HRC!
OM,
Which does a bully (Putin) prefer to push around, someone who cowers and seeks to appease or someone who challenges them?
Are you really that ignorant of human nature?
Putin has already met and taken Hillary’s measure because that’s the first thing alpha dogs do when they meet. Vindictiveness is the only card she has to play. She’ll never express a willingness to fight, to be the alpha dog. And when an alpha dog senses an unwillingness to fight, they know they’ve already won.
I’ve never claimed that Trump has never blustered, ala the birther law suit but he has sued many people. So I suspect it’s a case of calculating the payoff for him. In this case, get the media attention and then move on.
OM,
Trump is a liar and a loose cannon. Hillary is a monster without conscience.
I don’t really know what Trump has in mind, but there is one absolute truth here- NATO is obsolete. I don’t think saying so is outlandish even if true. Does anyone really think NATO would attack Russia if they invaded the Baltics? I think the idea that NATO would is simply ridiculous. The best that NATO would do is supply arms to the resistance, nothing more.
NATO was designed to defend Western Europe, not Eastern. It was a mistake to extend it to Poland and the Baltics, neither of which contribute nearly enough to fund and man it- much like their western European allies.
You have no evidence that Trump pushed back except through lawsuits, insults, and lies. He’s paid off politicians to gain influence, is that “pushing back” aggressively?
Trump is a bully and a”rich” one at that who has a pattern of stiffing those who can’t fight back. How is that supposed to work against Russia, and China, or the minor players, say Iran? Threats and bluster? It ain’t real estate and the mob in NYC he will be dealing with. And you claim to know human nature and statecraft?
The alpha dog cliche is pretty tired, pretty old, and pretty simplistic when applied to “human” behavior. It is a useful model for “CANINE” behavior and CANINE social interactions. We are a bit more complicated than canines, Geoffrey.
I’m pretty sure the canine model of behavior doesn’t assume a conscience for instance, even though you “know” who has one and who doesn’t.
Corrupt, dishonest, driven to power, and a democrat. yes that’s HRC. Not much different, until just recently than Trump, if you believe him and his changes.
YanceyWard:
The Swedes and Finns cooperate with NATO and the US and view Russian threats to Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia seriously.
And the Poles aren’t too keen about Russian influence either, at least that my understanding from Midrats podcasts. You see Sweden and Finland, and Poland are on the Baltic Sea.
But what the hell, we “know” that Donald will be able to handle the Russians! He knows how to handle murdering autocrats! Rigt.
YanceyWard:
The Eastern European and the Baltic States (L.L.E.) countries don’t want to be under the Russian thumb again, they’ve been there done that and have the bloody shirt. I guess it sucks to be them.
OM,
He didn’t get to where he is on bluster alone and you’re a fool if you imagine he did. Events and their aftermath have confirmed to me that I’ve got a basic handle on human nature and statecraft, thank you very much.
Of course Trump is a bully, as is Putin, Xi and Iran’s Ayetollah . What counts is the forces at their back and, if a situation calls for it, their willingness to use those forces. Putin, Xi, and the ayetollah are willing to use force. America desperately needs a President, that the world knows will use force when our interests are threatened. Weakness invites aggression.
Expressions don’t become cliches without some basic validity to them and the alpha male cliche is no exception. Mentally, people are more complicated than a dog but emotionally, when it comes to dominance, we’re the same. Why do you think we get along so well? Hint; it’s not belly rubs and face licks. Dogs accept people as the alpha ‘dog’, the team’s leader.
It’s Hillary’s long history that demonstrates her atrophied conscience. Nor did I ever suggest that Trump has a conscience. As I don’t know whether he does or not. What is obvious is that it is not in his self-interest to see America be “fundamentally transformed”. As, there’s no place for someone like him in the utopia the Left dreams of…
He’s a social liberal but a nationalist with a populist appeal. And that, even given his authoritarianism, makes him far less of a threat.
OM,
You’re absolutely right that they don’t want to be under the Russian thumb again. Tragically, the russians are almost certainly going to be Eastern Europe’s only refuge from the coming Islamization of Europe. If that eventuates, it will suck to be them.
GB:
“Hint; it’s not belly rubs and face licks. Dogs accept people as the alpha ‘dog’, the team’s leader.”
It’s one model of canine behavior, bozo. Do you know what a “model” is? And not all professionals in that field ascribe to it for training domestic canids (dogs, not people, bozo). But take the canine model and apply it to humans and consider yourself wise. Another one of your “it’s all so simple” solutions.
Trump got where he was mostly as a consequence of his birth, born into wealth and having survived bankruptcies so far.
“Events and their aftermath have confirmed to me that I’ve got a basic handle on human nature and statecraft, thank you very much.” I know you are a legend in your own mind, but in time that’s another matter, that’s the true test.
“Weakness invites aggression.” So why did your man roll over to Putin (just using you doggy talk so you could follow) with NATO, the Crimea, the Baltics? Oh, I forgot because Putin will “protect” them from Islam. That’s “Stupid on stilts.” Just as Putin is protecting the Ukraine from Islam?
Geoffrey, when you lie down with an alpha dog, do you get alpha fleas, or alpha mange? When you have to take up the cause of the fascist Putin to defend Trump I wonder if you have a conscience.
The threat scale of GB needs some calibration, as it is skewed in one direction. That’s called a biased system, you may not have noticed.
Even if he had one, the media would just ignore it.
Trump has zero chance to win the left’s approval, the best he can do is make them publicly reject everything related to the USA (including US voters) by associating himself with it.
In this, he’s doing an amazing job; he even managed to get a DNC delegate to demand his own audience stop chanting “USA! USA!” because, and this is a direct quote, “That’s a TRUMP CHANT!”
GB:
Things (solutions) aren’t so simple with actual people, aka, individuals. But they are to totalitarians.
http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2016/07/28/muslim-gold-star-dad-destroyed-trump-democratic-convention/
OM,
Is that all the vituperration you’ve got? Surely you can do better than repetitions of “bozo”. Accusations of having fleas is a bit unimaginative too, come on pick up your game boy.
Verbal frothing at the mouth belongs on briebart, not here. But it does act as a perfect indication of your inability to engage in a civil discussion.
OM.
I’m sure that the “Gold Star Muslim Dad” at your link is sincere. I’m also sure that he’s in deep denial about the fundamental tenets of the ideology he embraces. His assertion that we cannot solve our problems by building walls while speaking to a political party that seeks permanent one party rule through illegal immigration is only equaled in it’s denial by his refusal to admit that Muslims, in the aggravate, spit upon the freedoms his son died to preserve. A good man, profoundly mistaken. No wonder you like him, he supports your biases.
1) if he was asking russia to break in to hillarys server, the feds would have to put it back together. not to mention hillary’s jokes about how it was wiped with a rag
2) it stole the attention away from the DNC
3) shows how dirty the DNC plays in terms of what is actually said or done, and what false angle they take
4) it will keep the state secrets angle of the servers in the publics mind through the election
5) if they want to go after Trump they have to first admit that there WERE secret documents in the batch of emails hillary claimed were personal and deleted then whiped
5A) if they do not want to admit that these were state secrets, then what will they accuse him of asking russia to do, steal her secret recipe for Baba ghanoush that huma sent her
Oh… and for the record, despite being a person who is always pointing out the ill that is known that Russia has pulled, history would bear out that they like to use proxies, almost never any direct anything. this allows for a pretty much no way to know if it was Russia, Russian speaking person from a ex satellite country, or was another state that tried to look like Russians doing it. maybe in 30 years we may know from some archive release, defector, etc. but now is a dead end and thats par for the course.
also for the record, they would rather have clinton, a fellow traveler, and the dems with valerie jarrets family being heavy communist, and fulbright for bill having serious ties with lattimore, and another kgb agent (i dont have time to look up but its not a secret)
-=-=-=-=-=-
The first woman to be up for president was in the late 1800s, Victoria Woodhull… Not clinton, she is the first to be on all primary ballots in all states.
but the list of women who have tried to run for president is very long… Belva Ann Lockwood, Gracie Allen (yes the great actress with george burns), Charlene Mitchell ran in 1968 for the communist party, and similar for many years but never as the dem party, because the fringe fronts had never gotten together as one before
But Clinton has shown that this ceiling does not exist any more, and then keeps going, with a lot of whats is there being girl power, men have no place and so are alienating a huge portion of the population that is watching. From speeches in buildings men built, to podiums that men built, and so on, they are told they are not the future, etc.
to quote scott adams:
On the 2D playing field — where policies and facts matter — the Democratic National Convention is doing great. And when it comes to exciting women, it might be the best ever. But on an emotional level — where hormones rule — men have left the building…that they built.
OM says: Trump isn’t the elected demagogue in chief yet, but he is a liar, and has undermined NATO and our European allies already. What a start!
List few lies, or your doing what you said trump does, which is slander without proof. And no, he did NOT undermine NATO, he undermined European unions confidence in being protected without having to pay for it, and then claim their socialism is a success on the USA dime… duh.
And you have no idea that he is a demagogue, as such people do not do well in business, do they? At least not when they are not being supported by US tax dollars, and assistance and all that, which trump doesn’t get..
Its like when they say that he has illegal things in his tax returns, despite beng audited every year. What can be in a tax return audited to that degree? Not to mention, do you know what tax returns for someone what has 560 subsidiaries, lots of investments and legally can make claims? Do you think if the average American pays hr block to do their taxes, trump does his own, despite it taking more than several reams of paper to print
Its ridiculous… all this crudola is because exept to trump dislikers, they have nothing on him. No endless parade of bimbos, no rapes, no drugging women to have his way, no underpaying women, 4 restructurings (which Hillary lied that he kept his airline, he lost it to pay and he never got a govt bail out), no criminal prosecutions not even as a young man, no ex friends from the schools with bad things to say, on and on and there is nothing of any real meaning.. lots of opinion, lots of not liking his public presented personality (cause most have not met him, and yes I have), which has always been negative because of how he liked to stick his thumb in how much waste govt projects were, like when he did the merry go round and woleman rink.
And as far as which side putin would favor, the dems have been more and more communist globalist to the point the communist party stopped putting up people for president and even said the reason was that they could not distinguish their communist party platform from the democrats platforms. Then there is bills fullbright kgb and study in soviet union, hillarys love of alinsky and marx, Valerie jarrets very strong communist bonafides, even obamas, and ted kennedy… and a lot more… not to mention how out of touch the dems are with the average person and anti male they have become… and loving the united fronts for giving them enough traction, an army of intimidation, and the CFR for the press helping among others.
The funny thing is that I keep hearing people basically claim there is a perfect mold for what they think a president is and that this is universal and implied the same across all these people. The funnier part is that if they really knew the presidents they claim to have been presidential, nothing going on is really out of sorts and the past few decades of softies is the real out of sorts historically polite period.
Obama wasn’t the first to give the finger; George Bush got caught in a photo giving the finger from a bus behind a dark window where he obviously thought the people couldn’t see him.
LBJ waved his penis around and made lots of comments on it, and if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t now wish those were memories I could wash away.
Bill Clinton the known paraphiliac stuck a cigar in a woman’s vagina as she gave him a bj. Presidential or not?
Judith Exner was kennedys mistress, Franklin Pierce was a hard drinking alcoholic, Jefferson called adams a hermaphrodite, adams said Jefferson was the product of an indian and a mullato. Ulysses S. Grant wasn’t a tea totaler
FDR sold out much of Europe at yalta, and the people to Stalin, was crippled and hid it, and didn’t care about infiltration and how many things of his were later struck down as unconstitutional (and boy do they love him for that stuff).
Teddy Roosevelt and Trump are both big blustery want to be larger than life type ego characters. Teddy was one of the first real celebrity presidents, from the bear, to the paintings of him and san juan hill. one of Teddy Roosevelt ‘s children described their father, he wanted to be”‘the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.'”
Short of them all being quite American, they are all quite different and that there is really no presidential mold, other than the fantasies of the kind of people that made the Victorian era happened by such judgments being imposed from such people.
This idea of whats presidential has no more reality in a world in which etiquette is dead, there are few families that teach proper behavior or form, and such being desired in the past has little relevancy today with the generations that are coming who have tattoos, body piercing in their genitals, and so on. the most recent president pretty much spending a lot of time breaking such form and customs over and over.
Its very interesting to think that there are some people that not only require displays of form, but actually think that they mean something about the person who learns how to act that way, and train themselves to such behaviors. Their purpose is to hide the something’s about the persons, not reveal them.
When everyone follows them then you do not know much about anyone. As long as one acts by custom or what’s proper, no one can know whether that act is what one would choose if one could choose, or wants to do something else, but the custom hides that once followed.
Artfldgr:
There is a difference between public and private behavior.
“Acting presidential” involves public behavior. And yes, sometimes it is an act. The point is that presidential candidates used to act presidential (for the most part, anyway) in public because the public demanded it, and because there were certain standards they thought they should uphold. No more.
GB:
I get quite enough Trump boosterism, oh so coyly disguised, from you here. I haven’t been back to Trumpart or Drudge for months, your biases here are quite enough.
You don’t get analogies, or do you wear a flea and tick collar in FL? It’s not recommended for humans, BTW, even if you are with an alpha dog/male.
And of course you continue,an old line by now, to know more about Islam than this practicing Moslem, whom I assume you have never met. Awesome! Astounding! You know so much about so many people in so many places. /s
BTW, I said nothing about whether I like or dislike the individual. Your mask is slipping, is the inner totalitarian emerging?
OM,
Yeah, it sucks to Russia’s neighbor. That has been true for a thousand years. Like it or not, that isn’t going to change. As presently structured, NATO is no real deterrence to Russia getting the Baltics back “under their thumb”, same as it was no deterrence to them doing so in the Ukraine. NATO will not risk a nuclear conflict to keep Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania from becoming Russian satellites again. NATO wouldn’t risk it with Poland, the Czech states, or Hungary either. The Russians surely know this. What prevents it isn’t the threat of NATO, but the sheer bother of having to put down the internal resistance (see Ukraine, for example)- the Russian view is that it isn’t worth it, but one thing that might make it worth it is if NATO becomes more puffed up on the borders of Russia itself.
Russia is a great power, and must be treated that way- especially since they have the capability of annihilating the world.
I suppose the result has to do with where you stand:
Those who hate Trump are either prepared to believe he asked Putin to hack Clinton, or to tell others that Trump asked Putin to hack Clinton and hope somebody who isn’t already convinced believes. Or maybe it’s a virtue-signaling thing (I am more and more likely to see virtue-signaling as a cause of one or another piece of nonsense), or just what the frustrated Clinton supporters do.
Those who don’t like Clinton are not blinded by their hate to the extent they don’t get ordinary English. And they hear the dems talking about national security and it doesn’t take many reminders to be reminded that Clinton’s folks said the emails were all about yoga and wedding plans.
IOW, the dems know better, know Clinton screwed up–not in sense of making a mistake–wrt national security and dems don’t care.
Which the dems are making obvious.
A modest observation: I don’t know whether anyone else agrees with this but IMO long-winded personal “spitting” contests don’t make for very interesting reading in blog comments. They can turn off readers, thereby causing the surely-unintended consequence of hurting the blog host (or hostess).
That said, I recognize that these are stressful times and that tempers can and will flare from time to time. With apologies to both Dan Aykroyd and Rodney King, “Jane (you ignorant slut), can’t we all just keep it civil?”
Yancy:
So how did the Eastern Europeans ever get out form under the thumb of the Soviet Union? It wasn’t by conceding to the Soviet position, “Real Politique” and all that.
Yancy:
Some additional data on NATO, Eastern Europe, and Russia:
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlog/articles/20160729.aspx
GB,
Finally got to reading the Pat Caddell link. Thanks.
What I found most interesting were Caddell’s comments on Bloomberg; the jealousy of a billionaire who WANTS to run but whom no one will accept. It’s an interesting take because I do not get that same vibe from Trump (jealousy) at all.
1. Regarding what Trump said, it was clearly a joke, but also a statement that reveals a deeper truth. Hillary did conceal something, and was up to no good with her e-mail server. There has yet to be any accounting for her wrongdoing. And the media is deeply biased, unable to report accurately, while the audience knows exactly what Trump meant.
2. And there is another very important point, which helps explain why we are where we are today. Trump is being critical of Hillary Clinton. Where are all the other Republicans? All those well-known figures, all those elected leaders, all those other contenders for the nomination–why do they seem to be silent on this matter? Why haven’t they been pushing for some accountability from Hillary, just put themselves out there every day, demanding some answers and explaining why what she did was wrong? Where is the leadership from all the other Republicans? Where is the opposition?
3. If anything is being done, it sure isn’t noticeable. Note that every time a Democrat leader has the opportunity, he or she will say something critical of Trump. The same does not occur when Republicans have the chance to speak about Hillary. And this is coming up on 16 months since we learned about the secret e-mail server, nearly four years since Benghazi, and then all the quid pro quo contributions to the Clinton Foundation. And all this while the Republicans had a majority in Congress since Jan 2015. Passive half-measures don’t work; the level of bias and corruption is such that one has to fight this issue every day, until it gets acknowledged.
I laughed out loud when I first read Trump’s comment. I thought it was hilarious. How anyone would refuse to see it as a joke/ cutting wisecrack is beyond me.
Yankee,
You are absolutely correct. Just where are all of these Hillary adversaries in the opposition party? It’s almost as if Trump is waging a one man battle.
It’s clear that many of us are fighting with BOTH parties, the Dems and the Dem Lite establishment Repblicans.
Poor Donald, why doesn’t everybody support him? What has he ever done? Why don’t people trust and believe him? It’s a mystery. Those evil….who don’t support poor, poor Donald……
OM,
Clearly I lack the perspicacity to get analogies.
I don’t have to know more than a practicing Muslim, to recognize cognitive dysfunction when I see it. Any Muslim who sincerely asserts that Islam and American values are compatible is in deep denial.
If you didn’t approve of what the man said, you wouldn’t have linked to it. That’s the ‘like’ to which I referred.
It was the collapse of the Soviet Union and it’s inability to hold on to it’s former satellites that led to Eastern Europe’s freedom.
Since when did exposing Hillary Clinton indicate support for Trump?
carl in atlanta,
I agree. What would you recommend when someone repeatedly attacks you? Silence indicates an inability to respond. When I try to keep it to specifics, the typical response is contempt without substance.
T,
Bloomberg is IMO a small minded, petty man.
Art,
RE: “one of Teddy Roosevelt‘s children described their father, he wanted to be “the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.”
Brilliant. Thanks for sharing a priceless description. And I agree as to the similarities between Teddy and Trump. Egotism is a sure sign of buried insecurities.
The IRS has announced that it has opened an investigation into the Clinton Foundation “pay to play” schemes: The IRS confirmed in a letter it is looking into claims of “pay-to-play” practices at the Clinton Foundation, after dozens of Republican lawmakers requested a review of potential “criminal conduct” at the organization founded by…
Geoffrey Britain Says: gotism is a sure sign of buried insecurities.
that tends to be what people who dont like extroverts say about extroverts to put them down… in business you get nowhere unless you toot your own horn, so the advice not to is nice for management who wants and loves a great humble employee, as they do great work, and you dont have to compensate them… come to where i work and see how this plays out.
the truth is that unsuccesful people have all kinds of personal quirks and terms that are basicaly put downs of those who have achieved…
what is wrong with liking the limelight if your not compromizing values to be there? it annoys the judgmental prudes who think in terms o”presidential”, “lady like”, “real man”, etc
you think i would still be working where i am if i didnt display my ability like an egoist to beat out the humble who sit there and wait for a god that does not exist in the corporate structure or org chart to look down upon them, and lift them?
heck no…
the same is true with terms like arrogant which dont apply if you like the person, and seems universal when you dont… ie. its not a valid label of the other, its more a indication of the judge…
arrogant: having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities
people think i am an arrogant egoist because i refuse to hide the fact i went to bronx science, work in research computing, and mostly without any degrees or such…
i have a chip design that i validated in verilog that can go through genetic data for single nucleotide polymorphisms at over 800% faster turning a two day minerva super computer work into a 2 minute job (but without my bragging who would know what i have?)
and no i dont do chip designs at work, they dont do that, i do that as a hobby… i was a celebrity photographer signed to one of the four worlds top agencies… i have performed at lincoln center and carnegie hall before i was 14… great experience…
the point is that when i speak with others of similar behaviors and efforts, its a happy crowd of admirers… but if let too much out with regular people, im an arrogant bastard that should be more humble
why?
because you make THEM feel bad that they had done little in their lives but whine and wait for that blessing that nevr came when myself and others grabbed the ring, and want the rewards of it
is my sense of ability exagerated? not by me, as i can list out even more than i did…
but to whom, and who gets to judge and make the claim its exagerated?
among billoinaire achievers, trump is just another guy that does a lot
among the averate, he seems arrogant, because sour grapes makes them judge him as exagerated
and there is no way to prove or disprove that level, because the judges dont care about such logic, they only feel, and then label
so when i was hanging out with patty hearsts daughter, carmen kass, and other luminaries, i was just one of the average crowd, but others thought i was arrogant when went back to the bar and answered the honest question: what have you been up to?
have to lie, eh?
Trump’s hokey-pokey, rootin’ tootin’ shenanigans sure spice up my otherwise miserable existence … I’m old and will be dead soon enough, but until then, in the meantime, I say stick it to em’!
This crap is the workings of elder donors and their ne’er—do—well sons and daughter ”yessums” hoping to garner what’s left of the family inheritance.
Fair enough theory. Democracy be darned.
neo-neocon Says:
Artfldgr: There is a difference between public and private behavior.
not any more… Thats OLD OLD OLD
your just ignoring the future and whats after us over 50 year old average… (while all the other groups are under 30 average…)
NONE of that stuff applies any more..
rememver, the link i gave to the everything is political
which the corollary is, everything is public
when women started wearing their underwear outside their clothes, all the idea of whats public and private went out of the window forever
when they started feeling compelled to inform us who never asked what kind of ex you prefer, and all knowing what that entails to come out of the closet, the private ended
when they started wearing meat for a dress, we wished the private went back into pandoras box
when Maplethorpe had a public showing of bullwhips and fists up his ass…
what could be private any more?
when people are adding teflon wiskers, living cosplay lives and having horns installed and becoming walking fantasy cartoons in the real world instead of private lives, that all ended
without the oppressive women who guarded the halls of proper behavior and imposed that, there is no private… it wasnt the men, it was always the women… they didnt want to expose themselves to win the dataing game, and they did not want their paramours to focus on their assets instead of their brains…
but once feminism blamed the men for that, turned society into a self funded harem of public wealth orgies, and people came out and so on, that was all dead
come by work sometime, i can show you the desnuda’s
women who expose themselves for money in times square
how private is that?
why not read
Feminism and the Public/Private Distinction
Ruth Gavison
Stanford Law Review
Vol. 45, No. 1 (Nov., 1992), pp. 1-45
but you can go farther back to the era where they said things like men use the night to destroy us… and now, they are putting everything into the light and have done away with the idea of private.. is your bathroom private now that men can go in?
the reason is the globalists find it expensive to keep pets that have such requirements, and such things would negate controlling mating.. no?
Ruth Gavison is an Israeli Law professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her areas of research include Ethnic Conflict, the Protection of Minorities, Human Rights, Political Theory, Judiciary Law, Religion and Politics, and Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. She is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
but i linked way back to the origin of ALL this and there was no discussion
[lets try again]
The Personal is Political
http://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html
the link above is to the actual paper that changed our society once adapted by the women, and what set us on a course to make islam fear the west and want it destroyed so as to save their daughters and wives from debasement… 🙂
The personal is political – wiki
The personal is political, also termed The private is political, is a political argument used as a rallying slogan of student movement and second-wave feminism from the late 1960s. It underscored the connections between personal experience and larger social and political structures. In the context of the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, it was a challenge to the nuclear family and family values
you konw, family values, the ones in which you grow up being taught that there is this personal world, and a public world.. but thats dead… been dead since 1968…
[edited for length by n-n]
GB:
The root of your folly “I don’t have to know more than a practicing Muslim, to recognize cognitive dysfunction when I see it. ” Yup, you don’t have to know but you are certain. Hubris.
But keep on assuming what you “know” about other people.
I find the Democrat Party’s newfound interest in national security and calls to prosecute ‘treason’ laughable, and I am pretty sure I am not alone.
Artfldgr:
You are ignoring an important part of what I wrote. I’m not sure whether you saw it or not, but I am calling your attention to it.
In my comment, I noted that there’s a difference between public and private behavior, and that for the most part presidential nominees used to realize the difference and behave according to the standards of public behavior.
And then I wrote: “No more.”
So I am puzzled why you would write a response to tell me “not any more.”
Standards have changed. In general, what the public demands and expects have changed.
By the way, the reason I was pointing out the difference between private and public behavior for presidents or candidates in the first place is that you brought up the private behavior of someone like Bill Clinton or LBJ in the context of comparing it to the public behavior of Trump. But LBJ’s private behavior occurred back in the days when there was a much sharper distinction between the two, public and private. And Bill Clinton did as much as he could to keep the information about his sexual affairs private. He was not the one who revealed the information; au contraire (although his behavior was reckless enough that he should have realized it stood a large risk of being revealed).
BNeo, I just read your last response to Artfl, and if I may comment:
Clinton had sex multiple times in the public areas of the People’s House with an employee, at times while conducting the people’s business.
Hardly qualifies as private activity, more like abuse of public property.
IMO, that hardly
IMO much of the distinction between public and private behavior has been eradicated by so-called journalists. There used to be a difference between MSM and National Enquirer. Not so much any more. Much of what passes for “news” in the MSM is gossip and Kafkatrapping. As even the leftist Walter Cronkite noted, when you’re using adjetives and adverbs you’re not reporting; you’re editorializing (just note how many adverbs and adjectives appear in all of those serious “news” stories).
BTW in the case of Bill Clinton, perhaps it should not be “public and private behavior” but “pubic and privates behavior.”
VIDEO: CNN Wolf Blitzer drinks wine, dances to celebrate Hillary’s nomination
The Link (if you’re really interested):
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/video-cnn-wolf-blitzer-drinks-wine-dances-celebrate-hillarys-nomination/
Quod erat demonstrandum
West:
No, that’s not a public activity. And if it hadn’t been for Lewinsky talking about it to Linda Tripp (and then all the subsequent revelations), it would not have come to the public’s attention.
Now, of course, it was a risky activity that might have come to the attention of the public; that was part of the risk. But it was not a public activity, and Bill Clinton was engaged in trying to keep it private.
Art,
There is a difference between confidence and egotism.
OM,
An appeal to authority is a logical fallacy. That poor father’s implicit suggestion that our Constitution and Islam are reconcilable is proof positive of profound denial. No expert theological knowledge needed to spot opposing premises.
GB:
So you are now saying he is mistaken regarding the Constitution and his religious practice. Before you were saying all who practice his religious cannot be in compliance with the Constitution.
Rich, coming from an authority such as yourself.
Some professionals and serious minds think congress should investigate the reported Russian meddling in the current election.
http://warontherocks.com/2016/07/open-letter-congress-must-investigate-russian-interference-in-the-presidential-election/
There used to be a difference between MSM and National Enquirer.
They pretended there was a difference, and used American society’s tendency to conform, to enforce that on the public.
An old example would be Walt Cronkite.
As for geo politics and foreign policy, much of the world is as the Alt Right and Putin sees it as. NATO is flawed, and probably no longer beneficial to even its member states, let alone weakling minor powers outside it like Georgia.
However, that doesn’t mean everyone who recognizes that, are on the Putin, Alt Right pro Democrat slave lord white nationalism, Trum boat. Difference there.
For the Alt Right, anyone using Alinsky tactics is golden. But it’s their logistics (allies) and strategy, they should be brushing up on, not the tactics of a Democrat 70 yo Trum or his pillars of support.
People here at Neo Neo has already told Republicans and conservatives to emulate and duplicate Alinsky’s book of tactics, as an insurgency or COIN.
Trum is actually really late to the party, and is a latter “addition” due to DC power plays. Either Trum learned Alinsky early on and used it against his enemies, or he’s picking it up on Facebook and twitter from the Alt Right operatives.
Trump ties to Putin: Inconceivable! But Trump will fight them!
He’s so aggressive and “loves” America!
Well, he’s not Hillary. Profound insight.
http://www.redstate.com/sweetie15/2016/07/30/trumps-ties-russia-may-run-surface-deep/!
@OM – You mention how some here are presenting arguments that are suspiciously close to trump boosterism, in their defense of his actions, expressions.
It certainly seems so. I believe it is their single minded focus on how bad clinton would be that they have convinced themselves that nothing trump does, did, or can do can compare to clinton in corruption, malice, or destruction to our country.
Just one example… Assertions about putin being an “alpha dog” who has taken the “measure” of clinton, implying she is more of a “lap dog” than trump, is entirely speculative. Then the one making this claim flips it to his debate opponent to prove otherwise.
Crap. How does one “prove” that one way or the other? It is simply the claimer’s wish imposed on those relationships, which says more about the arguer’s biases than about the facts they are intending to represent for an argument.
Not everything trump does is terrible – for instance, this “joke” about asking the Russians to release the other 30K emails. It is merely one minor example in a huge line of ill considered comments from trump. Some may even “laugh” at it, as it does speak to some underlying truth about clinton.
However, I see no way that trump’s comment puts “America First” – something trump is branding himself as promoting.
And, it sure doesn’t show trump to be “Presidential” – yep, he tells us he can do that “anytime”, but we are still waiting (not that if one feels they have to say that about something so basic, are they really “getting” it?) – that should quell any “laugh” to be had, as it should be taken seriously.
Many “reluctant” trump fans then twist crap like this into an “advantage”. Yep, trump’s bluster and unpredictability does cause others to be cautious. That would be fine if it was well focused and considered.
BUT, trump is like that for Everything! There isn’t a statement or policy that trump isn’t mutable on (to say nothing about trump’s history that points to him likely being very much a Dem for most policies). And, THAT has consequences all the way up and down what the POTUS touches. In that context, it is reckless and dangerous! To ALL of us!
When it devolves to this type of argumentation, one can only conclude that trump must be “acceptable” to the arguer.
.
BOTH candidates have surpassed the threshold for “acceptability”. Either folks think that is true or not. If not, they will justify a vote for trump or for clinton.
If one does hold it as true, why the hesitation at looking elsewhere?
If we harbor some hope that our governing structure and societal organization will somehow put constraints on either of these two, that is nothing but a hope and a prayer.
We have seen much of the GOP collapse fall in line behind trump. We have seen the FBI refuse to indict clinton, even for basic negligence. How much more do we need to see that, in understanding how trump or clinton operate, the power of the executive branch will be greatly expanded and ripe for abuse?
If we look for perfect policy alignment – forget it! Doesn’t exist! And, it is mighty presumptuous at this time to be so picky about policy, given the alternative.
If we are waiting for a “viable” alternative brought on by some “leadership” (i.e. a signal for us to move) – that ship has sailed. We don’t have any “good” choices left.
If we ALL take the “wait for others to move first, as my signal to move”, we will wait forever. (BTW – waiting for such a “signal” is what brought us trump in the GOP – it is a losing strategy).
We need to move now. On our own.
.
Libertarians have TWO experienced, two-term Republican Governors at the top of their ticket. It will be as close as we can get this election to having somebody that doesn’t have all the disqualifying flaws of trump or clinton.
We need to break from our reflexive rut of a habitual binary choice. This time is different. IF the two traditional party candidates are now “unacceptable”, recognize that there are other choices available.
Consider them.
Make them.