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rmctagg09 The Wanderer from Brooklyn, NY (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
The Wanderer
#160576: Dec 5th 2016 at 11:29:35 AM

And people said Looten Plunder was an unrealistic villain.

Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.
pwiegle Cape Malleum Majorem from Nowhere Special Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Singularity
Cape Malleum Majorem
#160577: Dec 5th 2016 at 11:30:20 AM

[up][up][up]Depending on who he's talking to at any given moment, Trump tells people what he thinks they want to hear.

The only thing I want to hear from him is total silence. (I know, but a guy can dream...)

edited 5th Dec '16 11:30:41 AM by pwiegle

This Space Intentionally Left Blank.
CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#160578: Dec 5th 2016 at 11:30:27 AM

"It's weird but Republican Presidents, first Ulysses Grant and then Nixon, have been more helpful to Native Americans than Democrats (at least until Obama asked the Army Corps to investigate/deep six the DAPL)."

That's because most of the history of the Democratic Party was shameful, and not just with respect to Native Americans. The Democratic Party that we all know is a product of a post-LBJ world. And the GOP of Grant was left-wing for its time, so that it was relatively helpful to First Nations isn't surprising.

edited 5th Dec '16 11:33:06 AM by CrimsonZephyr

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#160579: Dec 5th 2016 at 11:39:25 AM

I remember reading this article about the Jefferson-Jackson annual dinner and the controversy about the names since both Jefferson and Jackson are now villains. Jefferson is literally a bad guy in Hamilton.

I think Modern-Democrats see FDR as My Real Daddy, since he ended Tammany Hall and made them the party of Big Government and while he did some shady stuff in his time (Japanese Internment) but he did support decolonization. His civil rights record was spotty but he did pass this important anti-racist executive order and it was during his time that African-Americans started to shift from Republican to Democrat, or rather North Republican to North Democrat.

But you know I think it's good to lead by example and the Democrat Party should condemn its past, because if there's an example of the nazis turning into moderate anti-heroes, it's them.

edited 5th Dec '16 11:42:51 AM by JulianLapostat

Eschaton Since: Jul, 2010
#160580: Dec 5th 2016 at 11:56:14 AM

Fun fact about Nixon: his high school football coach was Native American, and Nixon believed that his coach didn't get the respect or recognition he deserved because of it.

KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#160581: Dec 5th 2016 at 12:01:19 PM

I must admit that I find it rather strange that Nixon apparently did a lot for the rights of Native Americans, yet from what I understand he was very racist towards black people, and definitely seemed to try to screw them over.

edited 5th Dec '16 12:01:56 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Oh God! Natural light!
JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#160582: Dec 5th 2016 at 12:13:16 PM

Nixon was a complicated man...

He was part of the conservative anti-communist wing but he got the support of the Liberal Rockefeller wing (which was pro-union and pro-civil rights) and he adopted that platform. Then he became President on the Southern Strategy, a racist dog-whistle campaign that made the South into a republican bloc.

Yet once he became president he continued LBJ's policies and oversaw desegregation of schools. He was personally racist in the way all political men of his time were, in the way even Lyndon Johnson was, but he didn't do many things to target or roll back civil rights (except for the time he tried to appoint an anti-segregationist SCOTUS judge that got rejected). I mean Bill Clinton's administration was more predatory to African-Americans than Nixon was.

Foreign Policy, aside from the deal with Mao, he was a nasty imperialist. Though I would put that blame equally on that overrated hack Henry Kissinger (another pseudo-intellectual like Bannon mistaken as a pundit). And I condemn him for Chile, for Cambodia, for East Pakistan/Bangladesh. But that's on his head as well.

Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#160583: Dec 5th 2016 at 1:11:42 PM

Jefferson was an antagonist in Hamilton but not a villain. There's an important distinction between those two. He stood opposed to Hamilton but when it came down to it, Hamilton endorsed Jefferson over Burr even though he and Burr had once been friends.

JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#160584: Dec 5th 2016 at 1:20:21 PM

I actually think Burr should have been President that election. I always liked him a lot. I mean he was also a slaveowner but he actually bought slaves and freed them, one of his illegitimate kids Jean Pierre Burr was an abolitionist badass and he was way more pro-immigrant than Hamilton. And he was pro-women's rights and he was a brilliant soldier in the American Revolutionary War and A Father to His Men.

And Hamilton was responsible for that duel and his own death anyway. He brought the pistols and put a hair-trigger in it giving every visible intention of wanting to kill Burr. His own political career was finished at the time, so he decided to take Burr's down with him like a good suicide bomber.

kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#160587: Dec 5th 2016 at 2:38:03 PM

So Trump's tweet about flag-burners excited an FN member to tweet something similar about the French flag. Except, as it turns out, it's already illegal in France, and penalised with a freaking hefty fine of 7.500 EUR. In the USA, the Supreme Court struck down any such attempts as unconstitutional as per Amendment 1.

So, you know, I hope the USA keeps that Amendment, they're gonna need it.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
FluffyMcChicken My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare from where the floating lights gleam Since: Jun, 2014 Relationship Status: In another castle
My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare
#160588: Dec 5th 2016 at 2:50:02 PM

[up][up][up] Presidential Mecha Villain Fight: Nixon vs Lex Luthor vs Trump

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#160589: Dec 5th 2016 at 2:55:35 PM

That assumes that there is a point where even die-hards will admit fault. On top of the fact that Trump has given angry people full authorization to act on their worst impulses, the people who follow him and other terrible Republicans almost religiously. They have seen their fortunes die under Republican rule for so long and reject the idea of taking "handouts" from Democrats that they have created a highly effective system of twisted logic to keep from having to admit being fooled. They have low expectations of government, so Trump's corruption is waved off. They either agree with or simply don't feel personally offended by Trump's bigotry and sexism, so that's not going to get them. They have already taken in a sense of victimhood and distrust for anyone different or "liberal," so they ignore the many warnings they received and regard news of negative effects as just lies to manipulate them. Hell, if anything, they deeply enjoy that so many are afraid or being harmed by Trump or his supporters as revenge for their own self-inflicted perpetual fear.

Combine all that with a massive propaganda wing, deep authoritarianism/xenophobia in the culture of many states that rejects anyone straying from the traditional consensus, severely limited education, some very genuine problems with inequality/poverty, and a media so obsessed with making money that they will always equate brazen lies and right-wing extremism with truth to find a very powerful engine for self-destructive denial.

That's not even getting into the classic totalitarian tactics of demonizing education manufacturing new, scarier "Enemies" to fight as justification as we've seen so many times in Republican-ruled eras. This is a group of highly manipulable people that will always be preyed upon by parasites like Trump or other corporate hacks, so their outsized influence is just too valuable for those oligarchs to ever risk getting a clue. The lies are only going to grow more brazen from here on and they will be desperate to keep these people too angry to think.

... The more I hear about these guys, the more I find it mind-boggling that Democrats and other liberals keep wasting time and effort trying to help them. Seriously, if I had anything to say in the matter (and I technically don't, because I'm not a US citizen in the first place), I'd say that we should just abandon them to the wolves they've brought upon themselves and let them be crushed underfoot by the society that they adamantly refuse to progress with, because it sounds to me that they're long beyond being convinced to give up their ways and the only feasible solution is to let them perish by their own hands and have their twisted beliefs die with them.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#160590: Dec 5th 2016 at 2:59:14 PM

People have mentioned this before but I would sincerely prefer Lex Luthor over Trump as President.

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#160591: Dec 5th 2016 at 3:05:06 PM

Me too. Luthor at least sincerely wants to advance humanity (and he has a lot of good ideas for that); he's just very egocentric about it (hence why he spends most his time trying to bring down Superman, whom he sees as a stubborn obstacle in his path to hold the spotlight), and also extremely amoral (though pragmatically so) in his methods. That said... Depending on the Writer.

edited 5th Dec '16 3:06:08 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#160592: Dec 5th 2016 at 3:07:30 PM

[up]Exactly. Because Depending on the Writer, he ends up being no better than Trump.

edited 5th Dec '16 3:07:43 PM by kkhohoho

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#160593: Dec 5th 2016 at 3:13:17 PM

[up]You and I must have been reading different comics. Lex Luthor is insane. In Superman's absence, he pointedly does not come up with a cure for cancer, until Superman taunts him into it. No, Luthor only cares for one thing: beating Superman. Everything, even his own self-preservation, comes second to that. It is not a means to an end.

Now, Nixon, he may have been a paranoid crook, but he was mostly sane, had sincere beliefs, and he did some good things in his time.

edited 5th Dec '16 3:13:54 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
IFwanderer use political terms to describe, not insult from Earth Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
use political terms to describe, not insult
#160594: Dec 5th 2016 at 3:17:50 PM

Depending on the Writer, like everything in comics (except the fact that Batman's parents and uncle Ben are dead.)

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#160595: Dec 5th 2016 at 3:25:04 PM

I got a better idea: Doctor Doom as POTUS over Trump. The man turns the entire Earth into an eutopia in the few alternate timelines where he actually gets his way, even if he rules said world as a totalitarian dictator... and in at least one case, this victory actually resulted in Took a Level in Kindness happening to him!

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
IFwanderer use political terms to describe, not insult from Earth Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
use political terms to describe, not insult
#160596: Dec 5th 2016 at 3:38:25 PM

Why I Will Not Cast My Electoral Vote for Donald Trump {NYT} A Texas elector explains why he has decided to not vote for El_Facista. Maybe Texas could still flip.

Edit: Since it's the Times, here's the article:

DALLAS — I am a Republican presidential elector, one of the 538 people asked to choose officially the president of the United States. Since the election, people have asked me to change my vote based on policy disagreements with Donald J. Trump. In some cases, they cite the popular vote difference. I do not think president-elects should be disqualified for policy disagreements. I do not think they should be disqualified because they won the Electoral College instead of the popular vote. However, now I am asked to cast a vote on Dec. 19 for someone who shows daily he is not qualified for the office.

Fifteen years ago, as a firefighter, I was part of the response to the Sept. 11 attacks against our nation. That attack and this year’s election may seem unrelated, but for me the relationship becomes clearer every day.

George W. Bush is an imperfect man, but he led us through the tragic days following the attacks. His leadership showed that America was a great nation. That was also the last time I remember the nation united. I watch Mr. Trump fail to unite America and drive a wedge between us.

Mr. Trump goes out of his way to attack the cast of “Saturday Night Live” for bias. He tweets day and night, but waited two days to offer sympathy to the Ohio State community after an attack there. He does not encourage civil discourse, but chooses to stoke fear and create outrage.

This is unacceptable. For me, America is that shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan envisioned. It has problems. It has challenges. These can be met and overcome just as our nation overcame Sept. 11.

The United States was set up as a republic. Alexander Hamilton provided a blueprint for states’ votes. Federalist 68 argued that an Electoral College should determine if candidates are qualified, not engaged in demagogy, and independent from foreign influence. Mr. Trump shows us again and again that he does not meet these standards. Given his own public statements, it isn’t clear how the Electoral College can ignore these issues, and so it should reject him.

I have poured countless hours into serving the party of Lincoln and electing its candidates. I will pour many more into being more faithful to my party than some in its leadership. But I owe no debt to a party. I owe a debt to my children to leave them a nation they can trust.

Mr. Trump lacks the foreign policy experience and demeanor needed to be commander in chief. During the campaign more than 50 Republican former national security officials and foreign policy experts co-signed a letter opposing him. In their words, “he would be a dangerous president.” During the campaign Mr. Trump even said Russia should hack Hillary Clinton’s emails. This encouragement of an illegal act has troubled many members of Congress and troubles me.

Hamilton also reminded us that a president cannot be a demagogue. Mr. Trump urged violence against protesters at his rallies during the campaign. He speaks of retribution against his critics. He has surrounded himself with advisers such as Stephen K. Bannon, who claims to be a Leninist and lauds villains and their thirst for power, including Darth Vader. “Rogue One,” the latest “Star Wars” installment, arrives later this month. I am not taking my children to see it to celebrate evil, but to show them that light can overcome it.

Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s pick for national security adviser, has his own checkered past about rules. He installed a secret internet connection in his Pentagon office despite rules to the contrary. Sound familiar?

Finally, Mr. Trump does not understand that the Constitution expressly forbids a president to receive payments or gifts from foreign governments. We have reports that Mr. Trump’s organization has business dealings in Argentina, Bahrain, Taiwan and elsewhere. Mr. Trump could be impeached in his first year given his dismissive responses to financial conflicts of interest. He has played fast and loose with the law for years. He may have violated the Cuban embargo, and there are reports of improprieties involving his foundation and actions he took against minority tenants in New York. Mr. Trump still seems to think that pattern of behavior can continue.

The election of the next president is not yet a done deal. Electors of conscience can still do the right thing for the good of the country. Presidential electors have the legal right and a constitutional duty to vote their conscience. I believe electors should unify behind a Republican alternative, an honorable and qualified man or woman such as Gov. John Kasich of Ohio. I pray my fellow electors will do their job and join with me in discovering who that person should be.

Fifteen years ago, I swore an oath to defend my country and Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. On Dec. 19, I will do it again.

edited 5th Dec '16 3:48:33 PM by IFwanderer

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#160598: Dec 5th 2016 at 3:43:06 PM

Nixon is a villain in the same sense Richard III is. We may not know if Richard III killed those princes in the tower but damn did he pass a lot of pro-peasant legal reforms in his time, including giving the poor the right to a bail and converting all pre-existing French laws into English.

Or maybe Nixon is like Robespierre, another famous paranoiac. Robespierre was an anti-racist, who supported votes for minorities (Jews, protestants), abolished slavery but he also sent his friends to the guillotine when they started to criticize the government (and got involved in stock market fraud).

Fact is a lot of real-life villains, with the exception of Hitler and a few others (who are rightly hated), are a fair bit more complex and nuanced. Many start out as heroes, or in Nixon's case start out as villain and then once in office, starts doing more good than anybody had any reason to expect him to do. Not for nothing does Noam Chomsky call Nixon "our last liberal president".

Geostomp In the name of the POWER, I will punish you! from Arkansas, USA Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
In the name of the POWER, I will punish you!
#160599: Dec 5th 2016 at 3:46:50 PM

I doubt that too many more electors will find their consciences at this point, even with new stories daily on Trump's corruption and utter incompetence, but at this point, I'll be happy just to spite him a little more.

"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all" Futurama, Godfellas
Gilphon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#160600: Dec 5th 2016 at 3:53:23 PM

if another 36 GOP electors make the same decision, it could matter! Though it probably won't.

Though, I mean, not counting the times the guy they were supposed to vote for died, it does look like we're looking at the largest electoral college revolt in 180 years, once you count the others we've heard about.

(One really hopes that we'll end up with more than 23 faithless electors, because I don't want to say it's the biggest electoral revolt since the time they took a stand against interracial affairs).


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