Trump

 Edit

a typical Trump medley of fabrications, provocations and insults.

The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the first part of the trial judge’s ruling — that Mr. Trump engaged in an insurrection, including by setting out to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election; trying to alter vote counts; encouraging bogus slates of competing electors; pressuring the vice president to violate the Constitution; and calling for the march on the Capitol.

Donald Trump has sold his supporters the dangerous fantasy that democratic politics can be replaced by one man's will. No need for distasteful compromises. No need to reckon with the concerns and interests of people who disagree with House Republicans. Just somehow return Trump to the presidency: He'll bark; the system will obey. They don't care how little gets accomplished, so long as that little is done in the most offensive manner possible.

Valorization of family and clan values over the interests of the individual or the public

The speed with which President Trump managed to turn a political party into a clan is eye-opening. Republicans are learning that to get re-elected, they must accept that unity of the ranks is more important than any individual political stance. They now need to defend President Trump at all costs and, indirectly, adopt Mr. Putin’s stance that a traitor is worse than an enemy.

Trump seems to regard his position as a performance instead of a job, outcomes are almost irrelevant.

After the election

Zero Sum Game

Donald Trump has won the presidency, but I don’t believe he will deliver on his promises. Like other self-interested autocrats,

  • his remedies are designed to exploit problems instead of solving them, and
  • he’s surrounded by oligarchs who want to loot the system instead of reforming it.
  • Mass deportation and tariffs are recipes for inflation.
  • Tax cuts and deregulation will exacerbate inequality.
  • America First impulses will fuel global conflict, technological disruption and climate conflagration.

The new administration will do everything in its power to protect businesses, and nothing to protect individuals

Mr. Trump is the new establishment in this country and globally, and we should emphasize that instead of painting him as an outlier or interloper.

##Democrats 2024-11-08

“those who wanted the status quo at any price” versus “those who wanted change at any price.”

build a Democratic identity beyond #Resistance

##CHECKS AND BALANCES

##ECONOMY

##IMMIGRATION

##ENTRENCHED CHRISTIAN VALUES

##EAST AND WEST

##Quackery to replace public health policy

Climate

The physical shocks caused by climate breakdown will hit economic growth. Shocks from flooding, droughts, temperature rises, and mitigating and adapting to extreme weather

Culture War

Race and Racism

Debates over Critical Race Theory and how race and racism should be taught in schools1
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Discussions about systemic racism and racial justice movements

LGBTQ+ Rights

Controversies surrounding gay rights, transgender rights, and LGBTQ+ issues in education3
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Debates over pronouns, gender identity, and related policies

Abortion and Reproductive Rights

Ongoing conflicts over abortion access and women's reproductive freedoms3
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Free Speech and Cancel Culture

Tensions between free expression and concerns about offensive speech2
Debates over "cancel culture" and political correctness

Religion and Secularism

Conflicts over the role of religion in public life and education1
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Education

Disputes over curriculum content, particularly regarding history, sexuality, and gender5
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Debates about book banning and library access

National Identity and Values

Competing visions of American identity, history, and culture1
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Debates over patriotism, national symbols, and interpretations of the past

That is the formula that has left a nation seemingly resigned to the loss of both common purpose and institutional competence. It is not a formula for a successful presidency, let alone for making America great again.

  • Trump changes the propagandistic, cultural, legal, institutional to his advantage
  • a dream, a multiethnic experiment based on rights and principles, not blood and soil. (it's no working)

Voltaire’s warning, “He who can persuade you to believe absurdities can persuade you to commit atrocities.”

And these politicians were always much more about seizing and holding the power than about lifting the burdens from the people.

“There has been a lot of discussion having to do with ‘automation’ on United States docks. I’ve studied automation, and know just about everything there is to know about it

The rest of the world will gradually transition to Chinese-made self-driving E.V.s, “and America will become the new Cuba — the place where you visit to see old gas-guzzling cars that you drive yourself,” --NYT Beijing bureau chief Keith Bradsher

People of weak character are usually con artists and troublemakers; they aren’t sincere, and I don’t think they would make good songwriters. They’re selfish, always got to have the last word on everything, and I don’t know any songwriter like that. --Bob Dylan about songwriters

Source: David Brooks The history of the world since at least the French Revolution is that rapid disruption makes governments cataclysmically worse. Trump, the anti-institutionalist, is creating an electoral monarchy, a system in which all power is personalized and held in his hands. That’s a recipe for distorted information flows, corruption, instability and administrative impotence. As we’ve seen over and over again down the centuries, there’s a big difference between people who operate in the spirit of disruption and those who operate in the spirit of reform.