When the guy who makes a living on magical thinking says you’re delusional… Pat Robertson says it’s time for Trump to accept Biden’s win and ‘move on’ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/televangelist-pat-robertson-says-its-time-for-trump-to-accept-bidens-win-and-move-on/2020/12/21/83143262-43df-11eb-a277-49a6d1f9dff1_story.html
Donald Trump will leave the White House in January, but Trumpism—that amorphous mobilization of nationalism, white nostalgia, and anti-élite grievance, twisted by disinformation—will likely remain a force in American politics for years.
How bad will Trumpism after Trump be? “Seventy-two million people is a lot of people,” President-elect Joe Biden noted this week, in an interview with the Times’ Thomas L. Friedman, referring to Trump’s electorate in 2020.
But, when Trump departs, “I’m not so sure that ugliness stays,” Biden said. “There may be twenty percent of it. Twenty-five percent of it, I don’t know.”
We can be confident, as Biden is, that the great majority of Trump voters in 2020 are not irrevocably committed to Trumpism; many of them, for example, would just prefer to have Republicans running the economy.
And asking how the forms of populist politics that Trump has exploited and stoked will evolve after his Presidency is different from asking what will become of Trump himself.
The President may imagine that he can remain the sole and powerful master of his following after January—and, perhaps, to strengthen his grip, he will even announce a preëmptive campaign for the White House in 2024, as he has mused privately about doing.
Yet he cannot deny a reality: generally, ex-Presidents lose power very quickly. (Think of Bill Clinton in 2000, even before he left the White House, unable to persuade Al Gore, his own Vice-President, to give him a meaningful role in Gore’s campaign against George W. Bush.)
Trump had no inkling what it was like to be President before he won the office, in 2016.
Come February, he may be stunned again, this time by the speed at which former loyalists distance themselves.
Of course, Trump may again prove to be a mold-breaker. It’s not as if the Republican Party is likely to stand up to him.
All the while Mr. Trump was conducting a Twitter-borne assault on Republicans for not helping him overturn the election results, even warning Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, to “get tougher, or you won’t have a Republican Party anymore.”
By this weekend, the president was considering naming a conspiracy theorist as special counsel to investigate voting fraud, for which there’s no evidence, asking his advisers about instituting martial law and downplaying a massive hack his own secretary of state attributed to Russia.
Seldom has the leader of an American political party done so much to strike fear into the hearts of his allies, but done so little to tackle challenges facing the country during his final days in office.
Far from presenting the vaccine breakthroughs from Pfizer and Moderna as testaments to private-sector ingenuity and innovation — once a conservative creed — he was fixated on menacing Republicans who might dare to acknowledge Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president-elect.
That duality in Mr. Trump’s behavior — acting as a bystander while other leaders answered a crisis and simultaneously raging at Republicans who have inched away from him — also amounts to a preview of Mr. Trump’s post-presidency.
He has shown no interest in shaping the debates that lay ahead for Republicans, in tending to the party’s electoral health or in becoming a champion of America’s recovery.
Rather, he seems intent on using his political platform to wage personal vendettas and stoke a shared sense of grievance with the voters he has long cultivated as a fan base.
✁
“The president could have made that the hallmark of his last days in office,” (Senator Mitt) Romney said. “Instead, he’s seen as promoting conspiracy theories and evidence-free accusations of fraud, which lead to a color of a sore loser.”
Senior Trump administration officials are increasingly alarmed that President Trump might unleash — and abuse — the power of government in an effort to overturn the clear result of the election.
Why it matters: These officials tell me that Trump is spending too much time with people they consider crackpots or conspiracy theorists and flirting with blatant abuses of power.
The big picture: Their fears include Trump’s interest in former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s wild talk of martial law; an idea floated of an executive order to commandeer voting machines; and the specter of Sidney Powell, the conspiracy-spewing election lawyer, obtaining governmental power and a top-level security clearance.
A senior administration official said that when Trump is “retweeting threats of putting politicians in jail, and spends his time talking to conspiracy nuts who openly say declaring martial law is no big deal, it’s impossible not to start getting anxious about how this ends.”
“People who are concerned and nervous aren’t the weak-kneed bureaucrats that we loathe,” the official added. “These are people who have endured arguably more insanity and mayhem than any administration officials in history.”
At Friday’s meeting, first reported by The New York Times, Trump discussed making Powell a special counsel for election fraud.
The ideas included commandeering voting machines, with Powell as a special counsel to inspect the machines, according to a source familiar with the meeting.
White House counsel Pat Cipollone and chief of staff Mark Meadows "pushed back strenuously and repeatedly against the ideas put forth by Sidney Powell,” the source said.
The meeting included Flynn, who was pardoned by Trump in November and is a celebrity with election-denying Trump supporters.
You’re not getting it from the president (sic) today.
Four Blackwater guards: Four Blackwater guards — Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, and Dustin Heard — were pardoned by Trump on December 22. They had been convicted by a federal jury in 2014 for their involvement in a deadly shooting of Iraqi civilians. Murderers all.
Two Border Patrol agents: Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, two former border patrol agents, were also pardoned by Trump on December 22. The former agents were convicted in 2006 of shooting and wounding an unarmed undocumented immigrant and then covering it up.
cdcoventry almost 4 years ago
What would you rather protesting be made illegal all together? Only “Trusted Sources” giving you your opinion and data?
Sanspareil almost 4 years ago
Season of giving has to be Rosmary!
KenseidenXL almost 4 years ago
They need to be careful as they haven’t got that much to give in the first place….
whahoppened almost 4 years ago
Pretty soon you don’t have a mind.
braindead Premium Member almost 4 years ago
Trump Disciples are hoping for martial law for Christmas.
What could be more of a ‘christian’ thing to do?
William Robbins Premium Member almost 4 years ago
Paul Krugman
Lots of people ridiculing this deeply stupid post. https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1341070389443739649
William Robbins Premium Member almost 4 years ago
When the guy who makes a living on magical thinking says you’re delusional… Pat Robertson says it’s time for Trump to accept Biden’s win and ‘move on’ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/televangelist-pat-robertson-says-its-time-for-trump-to-accept-bidens-win-and-move-on/2020/12/21/83143262-43df-11eb-a277-49a6d1f9dff1_story.html
Silly Season almost 4 years ago
Donald Trump will leave the White House in January, but Trumpism—that amorphous mobilization of nationalism, white nostalgia, and anti-élite grievance, twisted by disinformation—will likely remain a force in American politics for years.
How bad will Trumpism after Trump be? “Seventy-two million people is a lot of people,” President-elect Joe Biden noted this week, in an interview with the Times’ Thomas L. Friedman, referring to Trump’s electorate in 2020.
But, when Trump departs, “I’m not so sure that ugliness stays,” Biden said. “There may be twenty percent of it. Twenty-five percent of it, I don’t know.”
We can be confident, as Biden is, that the great majority of Trump voters in 2020 are not irrevocably committed to Trumpism; many of them, for example, would just prefer to have Republicans running the economy.
And asking how the forms of populist politics that Trump has exploited and stoked will evolve after his Presidency is different from asking what will become of Trump himself.
The President may imagine that he can remain the sole and powerful master of his following after January—and, perhaps, to strengthen his grip, he will even announce a preëmptive campaign for the White House in 2024, as he has mused privately about doing.
Yet he cannot deny a reality: generally, ex-Presidents lose power very quickly. (Think of Bill Clinton in 2000, even before he left the White House, unable to persuade Al Gore, his own Vice-President, to give him a meaningful role in Gore’s campaign against George W. Bush.)
Trump had no inkling what it was like to be President before he won the office, in 2016.
Come February, he may be stunned again, this time by the speed at which former loyalists distance themselves.
Of course, Trump may again prove to be a mold-breaker. It’s not as if the Republican Party is likely to stand up to him.
~
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/donald-trump-george-wallace-and-the-influence-of-losers
Silly Season almost 4 years ago
All the while Mr. Trump was conducting a Twitter-borne assault on Republicans for not helping him overturn the election results, even warning Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, to “get tougher, or you won’t have a Republican Party anymore.”
By this weekend, the president was considering naming a conspiracy theorist as special counsel to investigate voting fraud, for which there’s no evidence, asking his advisers about instituting martial law and downplaying a massive hack his own secretary of state attributed to Russia.
Seldom has the leader of an American political party done so much to strike fear into the hearts of his allies, but done so little to tackle challenges facing the country during his final days in office.
Far from presenting the vaccine breakthroughs from Pfizer and Moderna as testaments to private-sector ingenuity and innovation — once a conservative creed — he was fixated on menacing Republicans who might dare to acknowledge Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president-elect.
That duality in Mr. Trump’s behavior — acting as a bystander while other leaders answered a crisis and simultaneously raging at Republicans who have inched away from him — also amounts to a preview of Mr. Trump’s post-presidency.
He has shown no interest in shaping the debates that lay ahead for Republicans, in tending to the party’s electoral health or in becoming a champion of America’s recovery.
Rather, he seems intent on using his political platform to wage personal vendettas and stoke a shared sense of grievance with the voters he has long cultivated as a fan base.
✁
“The president could have made that the hallmark of his last days in office,” (Senator Mitt) Romney said. “Instead, he’s seen as promoting conspiracy theories and evidence-free accusations of fraud, which lead to a color of a sore loser.”
~
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/us/politics/trump-republican-party-future.html
Silly Season almost 4 years ago
Senior Trump administration officials are increasingly alarmed that President Trump might unleash — and abuse — the power of government in an effort to overturn the clear result of the election.
Why it matters: These officials tell me that Trump is spending too much time with people they consider crackpots or conspiracy theorists and flirting with blatant abuses of power.
The big picture: Their fears include Trump’s interest in former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s wild talk of martial law; an idea floated of an executive order to commandeer voting machines; and the specter of Sidney Powell, the conspiracy-spewing election lawyer, obtaining governmental power and a top-level security clearance.
A senior administration official said that when Trump is “retweeting threats of putting politicians in jail, and spends his time talking to conspiracy nuts who openly say declaring martial law is no big deal, it’s impossible not to start getting anxious about how this ends.”
“People who are concerned and nervous aren’t the weak-kneed bureaucrats that we loathe,” the official added. “These are people who have endured arguably more insanity and mayhem than any administration officials in history.”
At Friday’s meeting, first reported by The New York Times, Trump discussed making Powell a special counsel for election fraud.
The ideas included commandeering voting machines, with Powell as a special counsel to inspect the machines, according to a source familiar with the meeting.
White House counsel Pat Cipollone and chief of staff Mark Meadows "pushed back strenuously and repeatedly against the ideas put forth by Sidney Powell,” the source said.
The meeting included Flynn, who was pardoned by Trump in November and is a celebrity with election-denying Trump supporters.
~
https://www.axios.com/trump-officials-alarmed-overturn-election-results-a844d1d2-acb2-47a9-87ce-ac579458b1ea.html
dotbup almost 4 years ago
Winter Solstice: the shortest day of the longest freaking year of our lives.
Michael G. almost 4 years ago
If you believe it, it is so.
abbynormalhas almost 4 years ago
I think there needs to be less giving – more people need to keep what little mind they have.
NatureBatsLast almost 4 years ago
Oh look, a colored child….but where’s her cage?
librarian4hire almost 4 years ago
Jenna Ellis is now part of the deep state, if you believe Trump supporters. Because she doesn’t support using the Insurrection Act.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-supporters-rage/
Night-Gaunt49[Bozo is Boffo] almost 4 years ago
You’re not getting it from the president (sic) today.
Four Blackwater guards: Four Blackwater guards — Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, and Dustin Heard — were pardoned by Trump on December 22. They had been convicted by a federal jury in 2014 for their involvement in a deadly shooting of Iraqi civilians. Murderers all.
Two Border Patrol agents: Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, two former border patrol agents, were also pardoned by Trump on December 22. The former agents were convicted in 2006 of shooting and wounding an unarmed undocumented immigrant and then covering it up.