monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

@snood,

I get you. But while Trump is a sociopath and Cruz is a sociopath and McConnell is a sociopath and Charles Koch is a sociopath, george is not. He is an ideologue, sure, but we all have some ideology we subscribe to even if, I think, we hold to ours less tightly than george. Those I've named above will follow Trump or Trumpism pretty much anywhere so long as their personal ambitions are aligned. But I don't think of george the same way. I see him as a cult follower. He and I fell out because I could no longer excuse the lengths he went to in excusing both Trump and what the party has become. But I also know george well enough to grasp that he is more conflicted than he would let on in a public venue like this, particularly when he sees it as a matter of sides or teams. I'm very certain that right now, george is very conflicted. And it is the nature of that which interests me along with, I confess, some empathy with his plight. Let's leave it there.

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After listening to the Trump tape recorded yesterday, it dawns on me that only a single day of this new year had passed before it too began to smell of rot. Cheery, isn't it.

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@snood,

I don't really believe 70+ million people actually voted for Trump. Maybe we should be looking into Trump's totals. It seems like more people voted for Trump than common American sense would allow.

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@ehBeth,

The content of the call speaks for itself, and the audio excerpts should be heard by anyone who cares about the integrity of elections in America.

David J. Worley, an Atlanta lawyer and Georgia’s state election board's most senior member, said that a transcript of the call amounted to “probable cause” to believe that President Trump had violated Georgia election code.

Georgia elections board member calls for probe into Trump’s call seeking to pressure Raffensperger

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@crackedhead,

crackedhead wrote:

I don't really believe 70+ million people actually voted for Trump. Maybe we should be looking into Trump's totals. It seems like more people voted for Trump than common American sense would allow.

If sense was really common in America, we wouldn’t have elected his mangy ass in the first place.

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@blatham,

I can understand it if you think you know him well enough to believe he is conflicted over the current state of affairs.

I would hope that tens of millions of Trump supporters are wrestling mightily with conscience. Or I should say I would’ve hoped that - maybe four years ago.

But I take this **** seriously. It’s a game changer when I find out someone supports Trump - I can never think of them the same way again.

I think there’s a finite number of rotten things a person of conscience is willing to overlook- to shrug off - to deny - in order to allow themselves permission to support someone for “policy” reasons. To support Trump, a person has to make the conscious decision that any ******* thing he does, goes. Anything.

I cannot grok that.

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@snood,

True. Then again maybe common American sense is the true victim of the Trump era. Not us people who have always believed in common American sense, but the common American sense that all of the needy, whiney, savior needing Trump supporters who absolutely think they need to buy a $50,000 truck to be something in life, even if they can't afford it. I blame America's success for creating morons like Trump supporters, It was bound to happen

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Trump supporters spent so long living beyond their means that they needed a Trump to get them out of their own chosen debt. That is pretty much the life story of a Trump supporter.

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george0b1 wrote:

I value the spirited collision of conflicting opinions and perspectives on the site, particularly when it doesn't degenerate to the angry name-calling that too often appears there. I find sustained encounters with folks who share a different perspective on contemporary events to be a good way to filter out, or at least moderate, my own preconceptions.

One thing about georgeob, he could provide decent lip service to the concept of the "open marketplace of ideas" which you didn't see in some of the other Trumpsters. But he couldn't shake off much of the Koch-friendly cant which riddled his imagination. The inability to allow or admit one crack in Trump's facade must have been quite a burden to sustain. And as he kept trotting out defenses of Trump which were just rehashed talking points he began to grow stale, at least to me. He might begin by saying that Trump could be a little more "polished" but by the end of his post he'd be in full-scale Breitbart mode. And by that time it was too late; thumbed down and insulted, he grew even more resentful and unwilling to meet liberals half way on anything. I imagine that by now he'd have no difficulty rationalizing Trump's blatant attempt to interfere with the results in Georgia — after four years of hewing the party line, I doubt he'd ever be willing to admit that it might have been a mistake.

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@hightor,

You're long on critique, and short on self-analitical.

Typical NPD sufferer.

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someone of little consequence wrote:

You're long on critique, and short on self-analitical.

Here's a great example of someone with nothing to add to a discussion but just champing at the bit to indulge in a little bit of meaningless armchair psychology. Notice that this character doesn't even attempt to refer to any of the other points raised in the discussion about georgeob begun on the previous page. Nor does the clown so much as mention anything about the phone call Trump made on Saturday and what it means. No, all this person does is show up and attempt to personally insult someone he doesn't even know. Priceless.

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@Builder,

WTF is NPD

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45 is singlehandedly ripping the GOP apart... i love it...

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@hightor,

hightor wrote:

Nor does the clown so much as mention anything about the phone call Trump made on Saturday and what it means.

The president of the USA,, his chief of staff, and two of his lawyers have been recorded pressuring state authorities to change vote counts so they can steal an American election. (By one vote - in the good old Soviet times they won there always with 99.98% of the votes.)

The president did similar in 2020, when he pressured the Ukrainian resident to help him win in 2020.
I wonder, if, when, where such has happened as well.

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@hightor,

That's pretty much my experience with george as well. Because he and I had many reasonable (or semi-reasonable) and pleasant interactions over the years, I came to consider him an odd and unexpected friend. Thus there was a certain painfulness and regret when I felt I had to stop excusing his continued fealty to Trump and the party. But at the same time, I thought (and still think it likely) that when he's in conversation with his GOP friends he would voice criticisms of Trump and party which he would very very rarely voice here to "the enemy'. And it is those ideas and criticisms and doubts which would interest me.

Edit: I should add that I would also dearly love to overhear private conversations between, for example, McConnell and his aides on the subject of Trump. Or between Ted Cruz and anybody he speaks honestly with if such a thing has ever happened.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

I wonder, if, when, where such has happened as well.

Yes. At this point, we have just the two cases of recorded calls and in both Trump plays out the same corrupt strategies. To imagine these two calls are unique would be pretty foolish indeed.

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@blatham,

I feel similarly about Finn — I was on friendlier terms with him on Abuzz — it was useful to have somebody who could articulate conservative positions in depth. But partisanship got in the way; as the GOP became the "Party of Trump" Finn loyally donned the red hat, his prose became more adversarial, and the occasional former flashes of independence and rhetorical brilliance pretty much faded away. Basically, he bought a pig in a poke, saddled it, and rode off into the sunset.

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Assange’s extradition has been ruled against by virtue of his mental state.

America can appeal.

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@hightor,

Yeah. Finn is another such case for me as well. Hell, I've even had many good conversations with McGentrix. And the affinities established in those earlier periods stay with me, even if other internal responses came to the fore.

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@izzythepush,

Quote:

But [the judge] accepted the evidence of prominent medical experts, including details of how Assange had suffered from depression while in prison in London. “The overall impression is of a depressed and sometimes despairing man who is genuinely depressed about his future,” said Baraitser.

https://bit.ly/38VGf6o

I have no problem with this ruling.

Edit: I see this just after posting...

Quote:

alan rusbridger
@arusbridger
1h
The judge’s reasoning was hardly a ringing endorsement of either Wikileaks or the function of journalism. But the extradition outcome is the right one and I hope the US will now drop the pursuit of Assange (and
@Snowden ) and let them get on with their lives.

Some might argue that Rusbridger has a personal stake here but that's not how I see his motivations.

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