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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Eschaton Since: Jul, 2010
#167976: Jan 20th 2017 at 3:54:38 PM

The former speech writer for Dubya weighed in, reaching a similar conclusion.

In particular, Gerson thought it sounded as though Trump was only speaking too the 46% of voters who supported him this past fall.

“It is truly shocking how disconnected this speech was from inaugural history,” wrote Gerson, who has been a longtime critic of Trump dating back to last year’s Republican primaries. “An inaugural for red American alone.”

Gerson also knocked Trump for painting an overly negative portrait of life in the United States, and for not offering a positive, uplifting message other than promoting his own grandiosity.

“There was the ‘New Deal,’ the ‘New Frontier’ — we have been treated to the “American Carnage” speech,” he wrote. “Trump has only one style of leadership — amplify resentments to intimidate opponents and force change.”

To sum up the speech, Gerson cribbed a line from Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address and twisted it into a Trump-esque concoction.

“With malice toward many,” he wrote. “And charity is for losers.”

In the same vein, The Threat Embedded in Trump's Angry Address:

Mostly chillingly, he went on to invoke the traditions of democracy with language that throbs with the double meanings favored by autocrats.

“At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other," he said.

The suggestion that Americans should aspire to unity—a defensible proposition—carries with it the implication that those who do not share Trump’s conception of patriotism are disloyal, not only to their country, but to their fellow citizens. Those who dissent betray their neighbors.

“When you open your heart to patriotism,” he went on, “there is no room for prejudice."

True patriots, he suggested, are not prejudiced, again a worthy sentiment containing a retracted blade: if you are not patriotic, you are prejudiced. Those who see racism are unpatriotic racists.

“The Bible tells us," he went on, "‘how good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.”

And so those who do not choose to unify behind Trump are cast as bad and unpleasant people. Those who do not unite with Trump are ungodly.

And finally this:

“We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity."

Fifty-six years before, on this same ground, President John F. Kennedy offered an utterly different vision of American citizenship: "Ask not what your country can do for you," JFK said, "Ask what you can do for your country."

Instead of JFK's open call to public service, Trump asks for a closing ranks behind his crusade to "make American great again." He insists that a nation, divided in no small part by the lies and hateful rhetoric of his campaign, must now pursue solidarity. Those who speak too openly or disagree too long are somehow disrupting the work of the nation.

unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#167977: Jan 20th 2017 at 3:56:24 PM

[up][up][up][up]actually is all of that, is just they proyect it in a fantasy: the guy who just come and said thing at it should because it should, who dosent own anything to anyone and he will atend their need by pretty much magic.

that is the america they wanted back.

edited 20th Jan '17 3:59:30 PM by unknowing

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
math792d Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#167979: Jan 20th 2017 at 4:14:11 PM

As viscerally satisfying it is to punch the bad guys in the face, this in no way adds to the credibility of liberals or helps to defeat such bigotry. It just gives them an actually legit reason to cry victim.

MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#167980: Jan 20th 2017 at 4:14:20 PM

Can you stop with the "It's so cold and miserable", please? Pointless melodrama does not help.

The first time I was quoting someone.

The second time I meant to put in a link and accidentally pasted the same line again.

CenturyEye Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign? from I don't know where the Yith sent me this time... Since: Jan, 2017 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
#167981: Jan 20th 2017 at 4:16:29 PM

In case anyone missed this gem: "Crowd count is in:

  • Trump 2017: 250,000
  • Obama 2013: 1,000,000
  • Obama 2009: 1,800,000"
from World Erupts in Revulsion as Trump Becomes 45th US President

I can't tell you if its accurate or not. (I don't know this site), but the pictures certainly point to a difference. There may be thunderous applause but its from the enthusiasm of a few.

Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives
Eagal Since: Apr, 2012
#167982: Jan 20th 2017 at 4:38:10 PM

Pointless melodrama does not help.

Better melodramatic than violent and anarchistic.

Ha, hell of a page topper.

edited 20th Jan '17 4:38:20 PM by Eagal

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#167983: Jan 20th 2017 at 4:41:53 PM

@Escathon's post: wow. Trump finally did it. He achieved full fascism. This year, several times, I loudly and repeatedly said that Trump was not the Fascist he was painted as. Just an opportunistic, authoritarian, racist, misogynist, anti-intellectual, bigot. But now, with this call to shut up and obey, he is finally getting there. All he's missing is the call for natalism.

Also, Donald Trump is a Count Olaf who succeeded in stealing the Beaudelaire fortune.

[up] I don't encourage you to get violent, but I do encourage you to get disruptive and uncooperative, and to put your liberty and your life on the line, or, soon, we will have neither.

edited 20th Jan '17 4:43:21 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
StarOutlaw Since: Nov, 2010
#167984: Jan 20th 2017 at 4:43:40 PM

Don't let anyone tell you that Trump and his ilk are the "real" Americans when he can barely round up a fourth of the crowd Obama got. It's bullshit if they think they're the majority. But people giving in to cowardice and not fighting back will allow them to be more powerful. I really hope the 1 mil. Woman March goes off without a hitch to demonstrate that. Never, ever fucking back down from these assholes.

And when these Trumpers try to say you're discriminating against them, remember this; Tolerance is for the things that people have no control over. Tolerance is towards things that doesn't cause harm. You can't decide your skin color, you don't decide the kind of people you love, and you can believe anything you want as long as you don't force it on others.

You do not tolerate bad choices, you do not tolerate acting like a dick. You do not tolerate religion when it is forced on the unwilling through torture or any means. You do not tolerate intimidation or dirty tricks. You do not tolerate police brutality, lynchings and murder.There is a line dividing what is acceptable to tolerate and what is not, and when that line is crossed the line loses meaning. This is the line between good an evil, and more people will cross it if they aren't stopped by others.

I'm not going to ask anyone to punch a Nazi, but being the good guy does take sacrifice. Each person has to decide what they're willing to give up to stand by their beliefs. Are you willing to lose your job, are you willing to disown or be disowned by your family, are you willing to put your life in danger? I can't blame anyone for just wanting to continue their lives in peace, but we need fighters. Trumplings may be a bunch of dicks who would lynch you if they could, but they are cowards who hide behind their guns and their shouting and their stupidity.

Eagal Since: Apr, 2012
#167985: Jan 20th 2017 at 4:45:28 PM

Never knew No True Scotsman hinged on the number of people who are willing to attend your public speeches.

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#167986: Jan 20th 2017 at 4:55:45 PM

It's not about No True Scotsman, just the opposite.

"Real americans" are just people born in the US. That's it. The "college educated elite" is just as american as the ex coal worker living in the rural enclaves. "Real americans" aren't just people who happen to agree with your values, they are everyone. And yes that goes both ways, racists are americans too and I'm not going to say they aren't "real americans", I will just call them racists. "American values" aren't this singular monolithic thing anymore, since America itself is divided. The question is what values are worth keeping around.

edited 20th Jan '17 4:59:01 PM by Draghinazzo

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#167987: Jan 20th 2017 at 5:07:23 PM

Ugh, can the Orange One have been any more blatant?

Guys... I know I've said this before already, and I know that some of you didn't like hearing, but I will repeat as many times as I feel I must: Keep all possible courses of action and reaction in consideration, no matter how unpalatable they may be to your sensibilities. It seems to me that it's only a matter of time before you find yourselves before the Godzilla Threshold and the only options before you are to cross it and embrace the Crapsack World behind it... or resort to one of those aforementioned courses of (re)action and take back America from the deplorables that usurped it.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#167988: Jan 20th 2017 at 5:07:59 PM

[up][up][awesome]

Yes, this is exactly it. You can't redefine America to include only your preferred kind of people and expect anyone not in that group (or even in that group, if they aren't totally immersed in the Kool-Aid) to take it lying down.

edited 20th Jan '17 5:08:40 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
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
#167989: Jan 20th 2017 at 5:40:55 PM

As a person of Asian descent, I feel compelled to point out how during the "whether we are black, brown, or white - we all bleed the same red blood as Americans" line of Trump's inauguration speech, he conveniently leaves out the word "yellow".

Which basically means that when aligned with his past fiery rhetoric about China, he fully intends on deploying Yellow Peril for all of its worth.

Relevant line is at 14:57

speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#167990: Jan 20th 2017 at 5:42:54 PM

I don't think we're ever coming back from this. I hate to sound pessimistic but I honestly don't see it happening now. We're at the point where neither side is willing to back down. The competing protests in DC only drive that point home, as if it wasn't painfully clear through this whole election cycle.

If we're not formally in a Civil War, we might as well be. Both sides hate each others' guts, and no amount of conciliatory language from those wanting peace and compromise is going to change it. Those in the middle will be accused of working for the "enemy". Internet info bubbles and circle jerks will only divide people even further.

Trump may not have created these intense sects- this has been building for quite some time- but he is guilty of stirring the pot. And now he's inherited a divided nation. If he has any ounce of brains, he'll find ways to actually unite people via good, not pay lip service to "unity" and do the opposite by giving police full power to arrest anybody who's remotely critical of him, and gut programs that benefit equality to everyone.

[/rant]

edited 20th Jan '17 5:44:25 PM by speedyboris

Bat178 Since: May, 2011
#167991: Jan 20th 2017 at 5:50:27 PM

[up][up] Why did you have to link a video?

IFwanderer use political terms to describe, not insult from Earth Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
use political terms to describe, not insult
#167992: Jan 20th 2017 at 5:52:49 PM

[up][up]From experience: that wound is going to last a Looooooong time.

EDIT: the wound in society, I mean.

edited 20th Jan '17 5:54:22 PM by IFwanderer

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
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
#167993: Jan 20th 2017 at 5:56:15 PM

[up][up] . . . So people can see and hear him say the line exactly how he said it instead of having to scroll through a transcript?

kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#167994: Jan 20th 2017 at 5:58:04 PM

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Civil War II isn't just a possibility, it's practically a near certainty. Especially now.

edited 20th Jan '17 5:59:26 PM by kkhohoho

TrashJack Confirmed Doomer from beyond the Despair Event Horizon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Confirmed Doomer
#167995: Jan 20th 2017 at 5:58:50 PM

[up][up][up] If anything, this isn't even a new wound. It's the same wound inflicted by the Civil War, improperly and incompletely treated and left to fester for over a century.

[up] If this is indeed the beginning of Civil War II, I'd say the deck is stacked too heavily in the Republicans' favor for a rebellion to ever have a chance of winning. The military heavily leans Republican, and there's a massive disparity between the military's weaponry, technology, and fighting ability and that of the civilian population. Civil War II won't be a war, it'll be a massacre on par with, or dare I say exceeding the Holocaust.

edited 20th Jan '17 6:05:38 PM by TrashJack

"Cynic, n. — A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be." - The Devil's Dictionary
CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#167996: Jan 20th 2017 at 6:00:36 PM

[up][up][up]Yeah, but that involves having to listen to his voice. I've made it a personal goal not to listen to a word he says for the next four years. I'll read the text of it, but I cannot stand that Staten Island bookie accent.

edited 20th Jan '17 6:00:56 PM 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."
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#167997: Jan 20th 2017 at 6:03:27 PM

[up][up]Yeeup. We've been on the operating table for the last couple of centuries, and if we can't finally close and heal the wound soon, we're going to flatline. Only, in the grandest tradition of the Soap Opera, we'll be dying of childbirth and leaving behind two polar opposite twins who tried to strangle each other even in the womb, and neither's going to rest until they can either claim older sibling dibs or be officially declared an only child.

@Civil War II: I'm not so sure. Remember, the last Civil War had soldiers — real soldiers — on both sides. And while a lot of them may be Republicans, there's still a difference between a conservative but well meaning Rebublican and a frothing ultra-conservative maniac like a lot of the Trumplings are. So I think we might get more support than anyone could have bargained for.

edited 20th Jan '17 6:08:17 PM by kkhohoho

unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#167998: Jan 20th 2017 at 6:05:09 PM

yeah, the biggest preocupation for me is the wound on american sociaty, this is not political rival but political enemies, its would change the way american do politics for future to come.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
StarOutlaw Since: Nov, 2010
#167999: Jan 20th 2017 at 6:08:18 PM

On what it means to be an American;

There are people who believe that being American means apple pie. Country music. Farming. Hunting. Fishing. Football. NASCAR. TV. BBQ. Cowboys. Rednecks. Red, white and blue. Guns. Straight. White. Male.

All of those things are meaningless. They're cultural stereotypes that are embraced to our detriment, with no inherent value. And to some people, keeping the image of America being a global tough guy is worth sacrificing the things that actually made America a great place to live. Freedom to say and practice what you believe, to have a government for the people by the people, where citizens are equal no matter their background. All that is at risk because of the insecurities of a bunch of assholes who feel their culture is being threatened.

And yeah, their culture is being threatened because there is so much wrong with it. A culture that's racist, sexist, homophobic and evil doesn't deserve to exist.

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
#168000: Jan 20th 2017 at 6:08:47 PM

Politico: Trump orders federal agencies to 'ease the burden' of Obamacare

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday evening instructing federal agencies to "ease the burden of Obamacare" before newly empowered Republicans can repeal and replace the health care law.

The executive order is vague — it doesn't prescribe specific action — but its effects would be potentially sweeping.

The order says Cabinet heads "shall exercise all authority and discretion available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay" any provision in the Affordable Care Act that would impose a "cost, fee, tax, penalty or regulatory burden."

Only Congress could knock out huge chunks of Obamacare, but federal agencies could try to ease enforcement of the law’s individual and employer mandates, for instance. They could also target the law’s taxes on the wealthy, as well as industry taxes that helped finance Obamacare’s major coverage expansion. The law imposed billions of dollars in taxes on health insurance companies and medical device makers, among others.

The order also directs the agencies to provide relief to the states, which could be a nod toward expanding an Obamacare waiver program that would give states more freedom to implement the health law.

Trump has yet to detail how he would fulfill his promise to replace the health care law and replace it with a coverage scheme that's cheaper and increases access to insurance. His campaign website vowed to ask Congress “to immediately deliver a full repeal of Obamacare” on Day One of his administration, which began with his swearing-in Friday afternoon.

Trump, seated at his new desk inside the Oval Office and joined by Vice President Mike Pence and White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, signed the order alongside commissions for retired Gen. James Mattis and retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, his Senate-confirmed nominees for defense secretary and homeland security secretary, respectively.

“Signing documents to allow Mattis and Kelly to be sworn into Cabinet and an executive order on #Obamacare,” Trump wrote on his new @POTUS Twitter handle, along with an image of the press capturing the historic moment.

Congress has already done its part to start repealing the health care law from the legislative branch. It began the process known as reconciliation, a budget procedural rule that allows the Senate to skirt the 60-vote filibuster threshold.

Trump has said he wants a simultaneous — or near simultaneous, at least — repeal and replacement of Obamacare, although it’s not evident that Republicans have coalesced around a plan to accomplish such a feat.

Republican lawmakers have made clear in recent weeks that they would look to Trump to take as much regulatory action as possible against Obamacare while they work through the messy process of trying to repeal the law through legislation.


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