The Idiocracy of Donald J. Trump

[Shades of Deivi Cruz]

 

[RatkoVarda]

Trump's attorneys need to tell SM which docs the FBI planted

 

[1984Echoes]

That should be a fun dog and pony show to watch. With... ultimately, an empty bag of tricks that will be presented to the special master...

[Tigerbomb13]

 

[ewsieg]

8 hours ago, chasfh said:

The thing that's most upsetting about it all is just how easily the US could have entered the war on the side of the Nazis, had someone like a Lindbergh won the presidency in 1940. A distressingly high percentage of people were sympathetic to Nazi values, and another high percentage were apathetic about it all because of our isolation.

Even with Roosevelt in office, If I'm Hitler in 1941, I'm thinking, there is no way the United States, a country so obviously divided along these kinds of ideological lines, could ever pull together to effectively fight a European war against them. With American isolationism in the bag, Hitler could have continued to run roughshod over country after country in Europe, including the UK, before finally subduing the Soviet Union and having, what, half a billion or more subjects in their Reich, minus the Jews?

Then they could have conscripted every man in the Reich to enter their armed forces and turned their sights on the US, a country of, what, 130 million? With a Reich four times the size of America, Hitler could have reasonably calculated that he could run roughshod over America as well—particularly given another reasonable calculation that maybe a quarter or more of all Americans at the time would have collaborated with the Nazis, given their like-mindedness on genocidal racism. The collaboration rate could easily have been much higher during an American invasion than in the invasion of any European country.

What Hitler didn't bank on, however, was Japan attacking Pearl Harbor. That woke a lot of people up because here was a nation of "yellow bastards" trying to invade America, which people racist to their core would never withstand. And since the friend of my enemy is my enemy, and Germany was considered the friend of Japan, once they declared war on the US after the bombing, that was pretty much it for any idea Hitler could waltz in and take over America.

 

I can't say what would have happened if Lindbergh won, but opinions can change.  To be a warhawk 2 years ago meant you were a republican.  Today, not to be a warhawk means you are endorsing fascism.  

Also, are you saying that if Germany attacked at Pearl Harbor and not people that looked obviously different from us, we would have just said that sucks and waved our hands in the air indicating there is nothing we really could do with our measly 130 million population?

[gehringer_2]

7 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

I can't say what would have happened if Lindbergh won, but opinions can change.  To be a warhawk 2 years ago meant you were a republican.  Today, not to be a warhawk means you are endorsing fascism.  

Also, are you saying that if Germany attacked at Pearl Harbor and not people that looked obviously different from us, we would have just said that sucks and waved our hands in the air indicating there is nothing we really could do with our measly 130 million population?

I think Europe - including Germany - was aware in 1939 that the US had achieved economic and military power sufficient to swing any war it entered. But it wasn't only Japan but England that crossed up Hitler's hope of keeping the US out of the war. Hitler didn't really want England in the war either - firstly because he thought that having gone to war with and defeated England's historical enemy - France, that England would become his natural ally, and also because he knew the bond between the US and England could pull the US into the war if England would not make peace. But Hitler misunderstood the nature of English/French history - that from the Normans on down the English/French wars were as much royal family feuds as the kind of deeper religious/ethnic hatreds of Eastern Europe and thus a France threatened from the East became an imperative for England to fight for rather than abandon. 

Alternative history is always pure speculation, but even if Pearl Harbor had not happened, it seems plausible to me that the German and US Navies would eventually have come to blows in the Atlantic sufficent to have resulted in the US entering the war there if it hadn't in the Pacific. And likely the ETO would have come to resolution that much faster if the US had not been fighting on both halves of the world.

[romad1]

The value of having "elites" who are invested in the well-being of the nation and who want to be seen as invested -- can't be underestimated.  Peter Meijer may be a son-of-a-bitch Republican rascal to many of you, but he actually did go into the military while nary a single Trump or Kushner has.  During WWII, the British Royal families and other upper class twits as well as the Bush, Roosevelt and other US grand families had to perform military service. 

[RatkoVarda]

compulsory national service - military or otherwise - gets floated every couple of years; always seemed like a good idea to me

[chasfh]

9 hours ago, ewsieg said:

I can't say what would have happened if Lindbergh won, but opinions can change.  To be a warhawk 2 years ago meant you were a republican.  Today, not to be a warhawk means you are endorsing fascism.  

Also, are you saying that if Germany attacked at Pearl Harbor and not people that looked obviously different from us, we would have just said that sucks and waved our hands in the air indicating there is nothing we really could do with our measly 130 million population?

I do think had Germany landed in the US with the goal of invading it, they would have gotten more collaboration from locals than if Japan had done the same.

[Tigeraholic1]

1 hour ago, RatkoVarda said:

compulsory national service - military or otherwise - gets floated every couple of years; always seemed like a good idea to me

100% agree, it might keep less kids from cooking nyquil chicken receipes? 🤦‍♂️

[oblong]

3 hours ago, romad1 said:

The value of having "elites" who are invested in the well-being of the nation and who want to be seen as invested -- can't be underestimated.  Peter Meijer may be a son-of-a-bitch Republican rascal to many of you, but he actually did go into the military while nary a single Trump or Kushner has.  During WWII, the British Royal families and other upper class twits as well as the Bush, Roosevelt and other US grand families had to perform military service. 

The Bush family in particular had almost a religious zeal to service. Both George and Barbara's families were upper crust and established in the north east and subscribed to the message of Luke 12:48.

[romad1]

2 hours ago, RatkoVarda said:

compulsory national service - military or otherwise - gets floated every couple of years; always seemed like a good idea to me

I think the compulsion should come from norms.  Those behaviors that are community and societal vs. the naked selfishness of Trump whose brand is gratification via the various vices he promotes. 

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, RatkoVarda said:

compulsory national service - military or otherwise - gets floated every couple of years; always seemed like a good idea to me

the problem is there are way more 18 yr olds than the military can use - it's a professional army now and they don't want lots of guys for one or two years, they want people who stay long enough to develop deep skills. If you are are going to do a national youth service program the military would only be a small piece of the program today - the rest would have to be civil services - and you end up with a political problems doing that because if you have a million youth doing some public service, you are probably displacing some people today who are gettin paid to do some of it. Those aren't impossible impediments to a national program but it's the kind of thing that reduces political enthusiasm for it as soon as it ever moves past the talking stage.

Edited September 23, 2022 by gehringer_2

[CMRivdogs]

23 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

the problem is there are way more 18 yr olds than the military can use - it's a professional army now and they don't want lots of guys for one or two years, they want people who stay long enough to develop deep skills. If you are are going to do a national youth service program the military would only be a small piece of the program today - the rest would have to be civil services - and you end up with a political problems doing that because if you have a million youth doing some public service, you are probably displacing some people today who are gettin paid to do some of it. Those aren't impossible impediments to a national program but it's the kind of thing that reduces political enthusiasm for it as soon as it ever moves past the talking stage.

Maybe bring back a 21st century version of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Possibly add some sort of program like teach for America or something like that. Make it part of  requirement to get some sort of relief on tuition debt.

[oblong]

service can even mean something like coaching a youth sports team or being a scout leader.  Heck, even officiating youth sports.  That is an industry that will be hurting very soon.  

[romad1]

41 minutes ago, oblong said:

service can even mean something like coaching a youth sports team or being a scout leader.  Heck, even officiating youth sports.  That is an industry that will be hurting very soon.  

And then we need to give youth sports officials the power of arrest!

(typed by a man who manages a youth sports league)

[Motor City Sonics]

There's going to be a big Klan rally in Warren........

[Tiger337]

 

Big time projection.  

https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-called-ron-desantis-fat-and-whiny-2022-9

[1984Echoes]

He must've been looking in the mirror at the time of any DeSantis tweets and...

Got confused.

[pfife]

Desantis is definitely whiny

[oblong]

combined with his high pitched voice.... not sure that will fully translate for MAGA.

and I can definitely see a rift coming as the kids won't want their gravy train and grift interrupted. Money going to him is not money going to them.

 

[chasfh]

47 minutes ago, oblong said:

combined with his high pitched voice.... not sure that will fully translate for MAGA.

 

I don’t think this gets acknowledged much, but I do believe a big part of Trump’s appeal is that he talks like a Queens stevedore, something he leveraged on his TV show to spike his popularity among the people who like that type of show. It sounds like tough talk, which is basically the only thing red hats respect. If Trump sounded like Bill Buckley—or, in this case, Ron DeSantis—I don’t think he’d be nearly as popular.

[oblong]

35 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I don’t think this gets acknowledged much, but I do believe a big part of Trump’s appeal is that he talks like a Queens stevedore, something he leveraged on his TV show to spike his popularity among the people who like that type of show. It sounds like tough talk, which is basically the only thing red hats respect. If Trump sounded like Bill Buckley—or, in this case, Ron DeSantis—I don’t think he’d be nearly as popular.

agree.  

[Mr.TaterSalad]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

I don’t think this gets acknowledged much, but I do believe a big part of Trump’s appeal is that he talks like a Queens stevedore, something he leveraged on his TV show to spike his popularity among the people who like that type of show. It sounds like tough talk, which is basically the only thing red hats respect. If Trump sounded like Bill Buckley—or, in this case, Ron DeSantis—I don’t think he’d be nearly as popular.

William F. Buckley is faaaaaaaarrrrrr too thoughtful and insightful for the MAGA crowd. They'd boo the likes of Buckley out of the building. To them, Dennis Prager is an intellectual and Prager U is considered in-depth research.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

William F. Buckley is faaaaaaaarrrrrr too thoughtful and insightful for the MAGA crowd. They'd boo the likes of Buckley out of the building. To them, Dennis Prager is an intellectual and Prager U is considered in-depth research.

You're right, and I also believe that it wouldn't matter so much if Trump was saying all the same knuckle-headed MAGA garbage in the exact same words—if his voice sounded like Bill Buckley's while he was doing so, he would not be nearly as popular.

We may find out with DeSantis whether this hypothesis holds water, although it's also possible that his tone and voice will be adjusted to connect with the red hats more viscerally.