Zero more years
The NY Times editorial board says get Trump out of there.
Donald Trump’s re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.
Mr. Trump’s ruinous tenure already has gravely damaged the United States at home and around the world. He has abused the power of his office and denied the legitimacy of his political opponents, shattering the norms that have bound the nation together for generations. He has subsumed the public interest to the profitability of his business and political interests. He has shown a breathtaking disregard for the lives and liberties of Americans. He is a man unworthy of the office he holds.
The editorial board does not lightly indict a duly elected president. During Mr. Trump’s term, we have called out his racism and his xenophobia. We have critiqued his vandalism of the postwar consensus, a system of alliances and relationships around the globe that cost a great many lives to establish and maintain. We have, again and again, deplored his divisive rhetoric and his malicious attacks on fellow Americans.
But political rhetoric is always going to be “divisive” in some way, because it takes positions, and that means some people will disagree. Calling Trump’s horrendous abusive bullying way of talking “divisive” lets him off far too easily. He’s an evil sadistic down-punching thug. Don’t pretty that up with mere “divisive.”
Mr. Trump stands without any real rivals as the worst American president in modern history. In 2016, his bitter account of the nation’s ailments struck a chord with many voters. But the lesson of the last four years is that he cannot solve the nation’s pressing problems because he is the nation’s most pressing problem.
He is a racist demagogue presiding over an increasingly diverse country; an isolationist in an interconnected world; a showman forever boasting about things he has never done, and promising to do things he never will.
That’s more like it.
This is one of the things that annoys me. Always saying this, without noting that the ailments he described were not in many cases ailments, but signs of a country that has people that are diverse and many of them have sentiments more in line with the modern world than with the one Trump voters long for. It’s time to quit playing this game of saying things in a way that sounds like he was describing legitimate bad things, things most of us could agree are bad, but which Trump didn’t solve.
The things that “struck a chord with many voters” include racism, misogyny, homophobia, nastiness, name calling, contempt for the disabled, contempt for everyone who is not them. As long as we keep pussyfooting around these realities, we legitimize them. Trump is not the cause of these things, he is the result of these things. His voters got what they wanted…a mindless buffoon who breaks things. A racist who works to dismantle protections for minorities. A misogynist who thinks grabbing unwilling women is just fine, and something to brag about.
I imagine NYT doesn’t like to think about the implications. If this is what 40% of the voters want, what does that say about this country? About our neighbors? Our families? So they act like it is all because Trump didn’t live up to what the voters wanted, rather than admitting that the voters elected the Trump they got.
[…] a comment by iknklast on Zero more […]
Yes, “divisive” is much too polite and euphemistic. Try Autocratic. Dictatorial. It’s not like he’s shouting rude words at the dinner table, it’s more like he’s stealingfood from other diners, keeping others from eating anything at all, and poisoning anything he himself is not eating.
It shouldn’t be considered partisan politics to point out the manifest harmfulness and illegality of much of what Trump has done. This from the supposed party of “law & order.”
Well that’s his good point covered. Now what about his deficiencies and problematics.?