"... the thrill of cruelty ..."

[Cyrano]

From today's NY Times.

President Trump’s most significant, and ominous, achievement in his first year in office is the corruption of the Republic. I don’t mean that he has succeeded in destroying the checks and balances on which American freedom rests. I mean that he has so soiled the discourse that a kind of numbness has set in, an exhaustion of outrage that allows him to proceed with the unthinkable.

The greatest danger from a man so unerring in his detection of human weakness, so attuned to the thrill of cruelty, so aware of the manipulative powers of entertainment, so unrelenting in his disregard for truth, so contemptuous of ethics and culture, so attracted to blood and soil, was always that he would use the immense powers of his office to drag Americans down with him into the vortex.

snip

Trump has lowered expectations. He has inured people to the thread of violence and meanness lurking in almost every utterance; or worse, he has started to make them relish it. He has habituated Americans to buffoonery and lies. He calls himself a “genius.”

If so, his genius resides in the darkest realms of the human psyche.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/opinion/trump-corruption-republic.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region.

[kentuck]

1. Wow!

"... he would use the immense powers of his office to drag Americans down with him into the vortex."

[lagomorph777]

2. In other words he sucks.

Or his mind is a toilet.

[Orsino]

11. He reignites debate on the legitimacy of ideas we used to feel ashamed of.

Our media quote him, and in their attempts to appear fair (or to support him), they lower the bar on public discourse.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. Excellent analysis!

We are undergoing what they call a "perfect storm".

[mountain grammy]

4. I guess it's not "love trump thursday" at the NYT.

From one day to the next, the NYT blows hot and cold, or maybe it's just me.

Just read an article in the New Yorker by Bill Kristol, of all people. Got this takeaway:

Kristol trailed off. On the other hand, there was the ignorance and variability of the President and the darkness of his movement. Real power ran through it. “This is the problem everybody faces.”

The darkness has power.. this is a real and present danger. The NYT has also given that darkness power, and then tries to mitigate it. You can't have it both ways.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

5. Eloquent.

Best description of Lord Fatass’ inner world I’ve seen.

Scorched earth.

[Juliusseizure]

6. His supporters are ultimately liable

He is all that, but that's what his 35% want. It's much easier to blame one person, but these voters, my fellow Americans, are amoral and severely lacking a moral compass. And I include several family members. Very fine people they are not. Not evil, just lacking in empathy and moral principle.

Trump was elected. He is sustained and encouraged to do his actions, and rejected if he compromises. This is not a dictatorship. This is intentional election of and unyielding support of cruelty.

He's carrying out the will of his voters, who all accept, and some thoroughly enjoy, the cruelty inflicted.

[rainin]

8. Trump was not elected.

We need to stop saying that. His surprise "victories" in swing states were engineered. It was stolen. We need to stop saying that he was "elected". (And to those who argue he was elected because of EC....don't. If the popular vote in each state had been fairly determined, the EC would have gone for Hillary.)

[Cyrano]

19. Agreed. Voter suppression, "lost" and

uncounted votes, plus possible Russian meddling with actual voting machines, adds up to another stolen election. Strange how Republicans are always on the "winning" side of stolen elections.

[maxsolomon]

20. A distinction without a difference.

Yes, the EC is unfair and undemocratic. But it is the system we have to work within, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

It's the same as those who come on DU and say at every turn "we must demand paper ballots". It's not going to happen without overwhelming Dem majorities, and we're decades away from that. 2018? it's an unhelpful fantasy.

We're at a peak of GOP power engineered by conservative money. "Stolen" is amorphous, and will not get apathetic voters to the polls this Nov.

[rainin]

22. I didn't say the EC is unfair.

I said the EC is the result of a vote count that doesn't represent the true vote count. The EC works fine when we run fair elections. When one side cheats, the EC is just the final rubber stamp.

[maxsolomon]

23. OK, then "we" (you) need to PROVE that OH, PA, MI were "stolen".

It can't be just a feeling. There needs to be actionable evidence.

Given RW power in those states and across the US, nothing will be forthcoming but theories and accusations, which are quite easy to discount when the RW Noise Machine works 24/7 to confuse the populace. Joe Average voter will not follow the minutiae.

For all intents and purposes, President Narcissistic Sociopath was elected. Put quotation marks around it if it helps.

[lancelyons]

7. its fairly scary if you ask me. We are slowly getting exhausted with all the BS going on.

The bar has been lowered. You can now be a piece of shit as president.

[Caliman73]

16. Not new though...

Trump's seeming hero (or at least Bannon's pick to be Trump's hero) Andrew Jackson was also a piece of shit. We've had a few POS presidents. The main difference is that WE are the people living through this time period and the stakes are higher because of nuclear weapons.

[Sophia4]

9. An eloquent response by Roger Cohen to that vile figure, Trump.

The headlines from 1933 remind us that the worst moments in history often seem banal at the time they occur.

And so it is with Trump.

We are fortunate that we live in the time of television and can see in Trump's expressions, in his face, who this man really is, his cruelty, his conniving, his cunning, his brutality, his ugliness -- there for all to see. He wears his sadism on his face.

The third of Americans who support him. Don't they see that too? Or are they too masochistic to care?

[sweetroxie]

15. He's their sadist

They believe that He will take care of them.

[Sophia4]

17. It's incomprehensible to me that the Republicans are such lapdogs

to such an obviously sadistic figure.

[Orsino]

10. "Unerring in his detection of human weakness"? Wrong.

Trump simply projects his own weaknesses onto others, and sometimes it may seem to stick. Usually, it just comes across as yet another weakness of his own.

He has realized that some Americans like bullying women, minorities and immigrants, but that's not genius--it's just a lack of scruples.

[maxsolomon]

24. Can you admit he has a talent for bullying?

He does it to anyone in his path. He'll find a word to tag them with (you know them all), and he hammers it home. It's not particularly clever, but it proved effective.

It worked on his GOP rivals, and it stuck to Hillary. He still won't let it go. He's a tenacious asshole.

[Orsino]

26. No.

He has a penchant for bullyng, but he is bad at it.

Now, he has successfully used money to buy silence and to intimidate others into compliance, but that's purchasing power, not talent.

[Pepsidog]

12. So true. Who could have ever imagined this after 8 years of Obama and the dignity he brought back to

the Oval Office.

[Caliman73]

18. It was certainly a possibility.

President Obama is probably one of the kindest, smartest, and comprehensively decent people we have had as President. Remember however, he was Black. I am not being facetious or hyperbolic here. That is a big factor.

A good portion of the country is NOT past the race thing and nothing that President Obama could have done, would have changed that. In fact, his successes were a spark for outrage for those people.

Trump is just the ugliest embodiment of that mentality. He is the quintessential "Ugly American", nouveau riche, vulgar, racist, misogynistic, anti-intellectual, but seemingly brimming with confidence while actually masking a sense of inferiority. That has been an attitude that has plagued America since its founding and Trump defines it, and shows us that despite strides in legal matters and mindset, we still have a lot of work to do with regards to race, gender, sexual orientation, and freedom from impositions of fundamentalist religion.

[Pepsidog]

13. Powerful, insightful and freighting

[Aristus]

14. 'Blood and soil' was a Nazi slogan.

Well-placed here, I think...

[niyad]

21. k and r. and saving to rerad when what passes for media makes me want to hurl something big and hea

[Cha]

25. Is there anybody out there who's sorry

they helped get this Cheating, Lying, Pervert in our WH?