Still talking about this topic this week due to the Pittsburg synagogue shooting. More political violence, oh joy.
I am so sick of those who want to blame this president for everything. ‘He didn’t express sympathy or express it fast enough’. STOP IT.There is a deep sickness taking root in this country and it is spread here. Twitter has become a white van covered in despicable bumper stickers. https://t.co/W5LiKnUQx7
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) October 28, 2018
That’s one of the better takes I’ve seen and he’s right. I’ve tuned out the criticism of Trump over this, partly because I think it’s cynically being used to misdirect attention away from the political Left’s direct incitements of violence but also because it has no basis in fact.
It really doesn’t matter what Trump does or doesn’t do. The people who hate him are going to blame him for whatever happens, even if it is demonstrably proven that he had nothing to do with it and the perpetrator didn’t even like the president. I’m serious. Remember when all those Jewish cemeteries were being desecrated and Trump got blamed for it? Then it turned out once an arrest was made in one case that it was apolitical?
It also happened with the threats made to Jewish Community Centers. Trump was blamed both for instigating it and for not denouncing it quickly or convincingly enough or whatever. Turned out that it too had nothing to do with him.
So yeah, whenever something happens, such as the recent bomb hoaxes, I’m suspicious of the anti-Trump narrative of the day the more obviously it serves the purposes of his critics to frame it as being helpful to their efforts. When I do, it proves right more often than not.
Everything Trump does is pointed to as proof that he’s supposedly trying to engineer hate crimes against Jews (besides the ones he’s directly related to and those living in Israel who like his policies) and other people and honestly, I’ve almost entirely droned it out.
I’m tired of it just as I’m sick people pushing for reward and advantage on the bodies of victims. It has become such a feature of the news that I’m long past the point of being numb to it whether it’s Democrats smearing Trump, Silicon Valley attempting to silence a competitor as is being done to Gab, or any other number of twisted causes whose adherents are always delighted by death and destruction if it helps them gain political power or fulfill an agenda.
Nobody who does this deserves to be listened to or taken seriously on any platform or in any media.
It looks like Gab is taking the blame for allowing this nutcase to post online. But Gab isn’t responsible, either, it was created as a conservative alternative to Twitter. There’s a real concern here-is this going to kill off social media as a form of free expression?
But Trump is fighting back. Some will say that maybe he should tone it down-but when you’ve been accused of something you didn’t do, should you stay silent? Ask Brett Kavanaugh.
Meanwhile, there was some good news this weekend-the Red Sox won the World Series, Brazil has a new President, and Merkel called it quits in Germany.
Sorry for side-tracking here, is anyone else having issues with the comments? It seems that when the comments are sorted by “oldest” (which seems to be the default setting) the most recent comments don’t appear. But they do appear (at the top) when I sort by “newest” or if I directly click on the comment on the recent comments list. It happens in Chrome (phone and PC) and IE.
I’ve not posted for a while, because basically the discussions here have depressed me with their entrenched tribalism where both sides think the other is evil and no one actually discusses anything. That said I’m going to give it a go because I think we’ve had good discussions before and can again. So here goes.
I think it’s useful to understand my point of view if you swap the word ‘Incite’ for ‘Inspire’. Inciting violence has a very specific definition – which is why Shapiro’s article makes sense. But I’m not arguing that Trump is instructing people to commit violence. But he is inspiring a certain type of person to take matters into their own hands.
After Charlottesville the ‘Alt Right/Nazis/Anti Semites’ or whatever you want to call them felt emboldened by Trumps initial refusal to condemn them. And when he eventually did, it was seen as a wink to them to say that they were ok. It inspired them to carry on and see a place for them in US society.
We can debate whether or not Trump intended to inspire Anti Semites, but the fact remains that he did inspire them.
Over the past couple of years Trump has declared CNN the enemy of the people and tweeted a GIF of them being attacked. Now while he didn’t instruct someone to send a bomb to CNN, it seems like he inspired the bomber.
We can debate whether or not Trump intended to inspire someone to send a bomb to CNN, but the fact remains that he did inspire him.
Some on the right, including Trump over the past couple of weeks have promoted a conspiracy theory that a Caravan of migrants are causing a national security crisis, and are being funded by Soros and the Democrats to attack America. This inspired one lone nutjob to take matters into his own hands.
We can debate whether they intended to inspire someone to take matters into their own hands, but the fact remains he did inspire him
When Trump claims that he’s a nationalist – maybe he doesn’t know what the word means. But white nationalists do, and they’re inspired that someone like them is the President of the United States.
So no, I’m not claiming that Trump is ordering people to shoot places up or send bombs. What I am saying is that his (and the GOPS) political strategy is to inspire fear, mistrust and animus amongst certain groups of Americans against others. If you believe these Zionist Conspiracy theories, or that the Democrats are paying criminals and middle easterners to invade the Southern Border, or that CNN is the enemy – then it’s understandable that some might take matters into their own hands. Presidents inspire people to join the military when the country faces a threat – it’s the same thing.
This has been inevitable for a long time with how it’s been going. It’s exactly as I predicted after Charlottesville. Pretty amazing that it has lasted this long. It’s definitely time to regulate the tech companies to stop them from deplatforming ideas they don’t like. I don’t care if they have to be broken into a thousand companies or forced by law.
They’re monopolistic and they’re abusing the public’s trust. It has to end.
We’re well into that. The bigger concern is that it will drive people further to the fringe. They won’t use the same use the same platforms so there won’t be any sharing of ideas…just hardening of attitudes.
For me, the last comment I post always appears at the top of the thread and stays there until I refresh the page. Then it’s at the bottom. Other than that, I don’t notice anything unusual.
ilovecress, I’ll just point out to what you wrote–which was very good and deserves more consideration on my part and I will after I have some time–that the Alt Right was until very recently “inspired by” Taylor Swift, of all people.
People look for inspiring qualities in others that reflect what they want. They see it in all manner of “heroes”. People like Trump or Obama or even Taylor Swift can use that for a number of different purposes, good or bad.
I don’t disagree that Trump inspires the Alt-Right, but I disagree that his goal is to create dissension. That’s the politically correct Left that’s been doing that. to the point of summoning the mob, silencing dissent, and the like.
Trump is inspiring to elements on the Right because he fights back against the people who are dividing us along gender, racial, and every line imaginable. He’s not creating it or egging it on. I firmly believe that he’s working for the greater good even as you believe he’s cynically exploiting divisions for his own enrichment or power and CM believes that he’s some comic book villain who is trying to blow up the world or something.
Absolutely valid. But you also can’t ignore the impact of CNN and MSNBC investing years into claiming that Trump is an agent of Russia, Hillary Clinton claiming that there can be no civility or peace with people who are a threat to their way of life, or explicit instructions from elected officials to harass and intimidate people out in public for their politics and not recognize that it is equally damaging.
Trump may inspire or be seen to use some sort of code words that I’m not aware of which influence the Alt-Right, but I simply don’t see him doing anything more than punching back at the people who are doing these things.
Question – in your mind, why is Trump sending 5,000 troops down to the border?
(I’m not trying to post and run – but we’ve just had a 6.2 Earthquake (all fine) so need to log off for a bit and sort a few things…)
Stay safe cress, didn’t feel it up here.
Because the military is the best option for detaining the migrants. Trump has greater direct control over the military, as the president, and has greater legal authority to use them than he does over, say, ICE once he has declared a national emergency. Also, there’s the benefit of the military’s logistics for detaining the migrants.
It makes sense to me. Why? Did you think Trump was going to have them shot or something?
What he said. Please be safe.
Trump is an idiot for wanting to try to end Birthright citizenship via EO. Which according to CM probably means I’m a blind Trump shill.
There is an interesting legal case to be made though of whether the 14th does actually guarantee birthright citizenship to illegal aliens subject to another country’s jurisdiction.
Mueller Wants the FBI to Look at a Scheme to Discredit Him
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/10/special-counsel-refers-scheme-targeting-mueller-to-fbi/574411/
Not sure why they’d need to discredit him when he’s not found anything at all.
Friendly fire…
https://twitter.com/RepSteveStivers/status/1057327397685653510
There’s ALWAYS a great historical tweet from the big man himself….
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/222739756105207808?s=19
Still!
“(Sen. Jacob M.)Howard is credited with working closely with Abraham Lincoln in drafting and passing the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery. In the Senate, he also served on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment.
During the debate over the first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, he argued for including the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof:”
…[E]very person born within the limits of the United State, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the government of the United States, but will include every other class of person.”
So really, we know exactly what was meant by the 14th Amendment and especially the “and subject to…” part.
\
Anything Jacob Wohl is behind is bound to be based on kookery.
Yeah, it should be clear. However, I don’t think there’s any amendment that’s been more distorted and caused more problems than the 14th. It’s sort of the “it means whatever it needs to mean” amendment.
And the fact remains that a Beatles song inspired Charles Manson.
For years and years and years, the left’s strategy has been to demonize the right, by labeling them “Nazis”, “racists”, “bigots”, and so on.
For years and years and years, the left’s strategy has been to demonize the right, by claiming they hate poor people, people of color, people of certain religions, and so forth.
For years and years and years, the left’s strategy has been to demonize Republicans, by claiming they want to take away your grandma’s pension check, poor people’s health care, voting rights from people of color, and so on.
This, and more, has been going on for years and years and years. And now the left is openly calling for violence against the right, in the form of various kinds of physical intimidation. The left is openly calling for its members to shout down people on the right, and shout at them, “YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE!”
What the left refuses to understand is they have no one but themselves to blame for Trump’s rise to power.
No one.
Sorry, ilovecress. The battle lines are drawn. We are at war. If anyone on your side sincerely wants to make peace, you can start by acknowledging that we are tribes at war (no matter how “depressing” you find that — reality is what it is), and own up to the fact that the left are easily as much to blame as you are telling us Trump and the GOP are.
If you cannot do that much, we simply cannot go forward.
This debate doesn’t start with “Trump”. That is the point no one seems to get. If you insist on trying to start there, the “debate” is over before it begins.
BTW I certainly don’t ‘blame everything on Trump’ (or variations on the same theme). As I said in the previous thread “Much of it pre-dates Trump” (and therefore logic says he can’t be to blame him for everything).