monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

To put a fine point on it, Donald Trump’s election has released a malevolent spirit upon the land. He invoked the magic message — essentially them vs. us — and the demons disembarked from their dark hiding places. He raided the lost ark and lifted the lid, and the whirlwind of humankind’s worst impulses escaped.

...Trump’s complete original quote, as usual offered via Twitter, was: “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”

Really? By “greatly” expanding our already huge nuclear arsenal, other leaders will come to their senses regarding nukes? Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed earlier on the same day that he wishes to boost his country’s nuclear strength, too. Just great.

And, really, again. What’s with making such war-mongering threats when you’re not in the White House yet? Tweeting on matters of such import is unpresidential, not to mention unmanly. Also, it’s insane !

Many self identified Christians in the United States feel persecuted. They are outraged that they have to bake cakes for same gender weddings, allow persons who are transgender to use public restrooms of their choice, provide coverage for the whole range of women’s health care for their employees, not fire workers based on sexual or gender orientation, and allow Muslims freedom of religious expression. Many self-identified Christians see these things as an affront to their morality and an attack on their religious freedom rather than a just implementation of the United States Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of law for all persons.

In the generations right before my own, many self-identified Christians also expressed feelings of being persecuted. They were outraged that they could not continue the practices of Jim Crow in the South, that people of different races would date or marry one another, that women would aspire to equal rights with men, and that persons who were LGBTQ would do anything but totally repress their sexual and gender orientation. Earlier generations of self-identified Christians in the United States felt persecuted when their “right” to own other people was challenged. Christian denominations even split over these issues, including my own Methodist church.

Many self-identified Christians who feel persecuted may find solace in the passage from the Beatitudes where Jesus says “blessed are the persecuted.” Perhaps they see their reward as the “Kingdom of Heaven” as the passage promises. The passage, however, reads “blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” – not blessed are those who are persecuted for denying persons equal protection under the law. Feeling persecuted because you can’t treat people unequally is not persecution for the sake of righteousness. It is persecution for the sake of wanting to treat people unequally – in other words, persecution for the sake of bigotry.

Christians in the United States who follow the way of Jesus may well experience persecution for righteousness’ sake in the years ahead. They may be persecuted for protecting our Latin@ sisters and brothers from deportation, for resisting a proposed Muslim registry and attacks on freedom of religious expression, for resisting systemic racism, for resisting voter suppression across the country, for resisting the exploitation of the natural world and protecting a livable climate, for standing with indigenous persons to protect water and land, for resisting growing white nationalism, and for protecting the equal rights of persons who are LGBTQ.

If Christians in the United States follow the way of Jesus, then we may very well see millions of Christians being persecuted for righteousness’ sake in the years ahead. If Christians in the United States follow the way of Jesus, then we should see millions of Christians being arrested over the next four years. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake for they will inherit the Beloved Community.

Miklos Haraszti is a Hungarian author and director of research on human rights at the Center for European Neighborhood Studies of Central European University.

Hungary, my country, has in the past half-decade morphed from an exemplary post-Cold War democracy into a populist autocracy. Here are a few eerie parallels that have made it easy for Hungarians to put Donald Trump on their political map: Prime Minister Viktor Orban has depicted migrants as rapists, job-stealers, terrorists and “poison” for the nation, and built a vast fence along Hungary’s southern border. The popularity of his nativist agitation has allowed him to easily debunk as unpatriotic or partisan any resistance to his self-styled “illiberal democracy,” which he said he modeled after “successful states” such as Russia and Turkey.

No wonder Orban feted Trump’s victory as ending the era of “liberal non-democracy,” “the dictatorship of political correctness” and “democracy export.” The two consummated their political kinship in a recent phone conversation; Orban is invited to Washington, where, they agreed, both had been treated as “black sheep.”

For me as a reader, Kathleen Parker has been a mixed bag of stuff. Smart, certainly but a bit too much of a "villager" (Digby's term for those who spend rather too much time in the DC/NY world of media privilege and isolation). But periods of extremity and danger can push people into being more honest and on point (which is precisely what is driving so many news media entities to focus on Trump's words, deeds, appointments etc and to speak critically of them in a manner and with a level of seriousness that I've never seen before in the many decades I've been studying US politics and media).

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To put a fine point on it, Donald Trump’s election has released a malevolent spirit upon the land. He invoked the magic message — essentially them vs. us — and the demons disembarked from their dark hiding places. He raided the lost ark and lifted the lid, and the whirlwind of humankind’s worst impulses escaped.

...Trump’s complete original quote, as usual offered via Twitter, was: “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”

Really? By “greatly” expanding our already huge nuclear arsenal, other leaders will come to their senses regarding nukes? Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed earlier on the same day that he wishes to boost his country’s nuclear strength, too. Just great.

And, really, again. What’s with making such war-mongering threats when you’re not in the White House yet? Tweeting on matters of such import is unpresidential, not to mention unmanly. Also, it’s insane !

LINK

Yes it is. Completely ******* insane.

The notion that people who still express concerns — including three professors of psychiatry who’ve signed a letter suggesting the man isn’t well — are just sore losers is nonsense.

When the president-elect of the United States so cavalierly threatens to unravel the fragile threads that hold civilization together, there are no winners. He or she who is not worried is not paying attention.
. . .

These are also not simple partisan fears. Many Republicans I know are “slightly terrified,” as one Trump voter recently put it to me. That most, if not all, Democrats are, too, doesn’t have to mean they’re all excessively disappointed, though many surely are. Nor, as the incensed have written, does my non-support of Trump translate to support for Hillary Clinton. We call that a non sequitur.

And when it comes to abusing logic, Trump wins hands down.

By “greatly” expanding our already huge nuclear arsenal, other leaders will come to their senses regarding nukes? Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed earlier on the same day that he wishes to boost his country’s nuclear strength, too. Just great.

And, really, again. What’s with making such war-mongering threats when you’re not in the White House yet? Tweeting on matters of such import is unpresidential, not to mention unmanly. Also, it’s insane !

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Integrity has nothing to do with it. This is common knowledge and you can check it out easily for yourself. There were no sources indicated in your post finding fault with Trump's fund, and you routinely make reference to such (not always) well-known facts without citation.

That's pretty much nuts, george. First, there were explicit links to Fahrenholdt's reporting on Trump's fund in my post. Second, I've been posting his reporting here (and the reporting of others on this) for two months or more. Third, I've been posting all the many instances of Trump lying about this (quoting him). And finally, given that you continually indite me for bringing so much outside commentary and reporting (all linked so you or others can verify) into this thread, what you've just charged above is more than a tad ridiculous.

Your supposed citations were merely more expressions of opinion from the tribe of commentators you frequent so avidly

Your supposed citations were merely more expressions of opinion from the tribe of commentators you frequent so avidly. They contained opinions, not facts or new information. That you paste so much of that stuff here does not constitute proof of anything except perhaps the places where you get your own opinions.

TRUMP: Stay strong Israel, I’m coming…

In late April 2015, a month before Trump officially announced his candidacy, he spoke at an event called “Celebrating the American Dream” that was hosted in Houston by the Texas Patriots PAC, a local tea party outfit. The mogul sat in an oversized leather chair and fielded questions from Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale, a prominent local businessman. About an hour into the program, McIngvale posed Trump this query: “Define American exceptionalism. Does American exceptionalism still exist? And what do we do to grow American exceptionalism?”

Trump didn’t hesitate to shoot down the premise of the question, saying he didn’t “like the term.” He questioned whether the United States was “more exceptional” and “more outstanding” than other nations. He also said that those who refer to American exceptionalism were “insulting the world” and offending people in other countries, such as Russia, China, Germany, and Japan. It is “not a nice term,” he said, maintaining it was wrong to equate patriotism with a belief in American exceptionalism. He derided politicians who use the phrase.