General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump doesn't have to threaten a Coup, or anything close to it
He just has to signal that there might be some violent "unrest" and then wait for someone to appease him sufficiently so that he won't push more in that direction.
It worked in the 2016 presidential election. All of Trump's claims that the election would be "rigged" helped make the FBI bend over backwards to avoid giving him any fuel for those claims. They assumed Hillary would win so they thought the prudent course was to go hard on her and soft on Trump in public. It seemed "safest" to head off any "trouble."
Too many in this nation, who actually know better, still handle Trump with kid gloves rather than risk "poking the bear". They think America can ride out his storm without confronting him head on. Two more years, or six more years at most that line of thinking goes, and then we can have our politics/nation/society back.
Denying Trump power now will result in violence, the only question is how much. Crazed individuals can lead to the death of dozens, or hundreds, or even possibly thousands. But they can't take down America, they can't undermine our Constitution on their own. If most responsible Americans of every political stripe stand firm against Trump's intimidation, any and all possible terrorism or even insurrection he may seek to stoke will briefly flare and then be crushed. The real danger is what we may do ourselves to weaken America out of desperation to avoid that possible scenario.
Delmette2.0
(4,169 posts)DownriverDem
(6,231 posts)until I die. There's a lot who will stand with me.
Delmette2.0
(4,169 posts)DemocracyMouse
(2,275 posts)randr
(12,414 posts)An aggressive response is needed each time he goes off.
Bullies only back down when confronted, they gain ground when ignored.
Not just by the media, who are doing their best imho, but by a united opposition voice of leaders.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,913 posts)We will never have "Peace in our time" through appeasement. Just the opposite in fact. Non "True Believer Trumpsters" in the Republican Party disgust me even more than those who are still literally under his spell.This is how Republics are lost, they are willfully surrendered in small pieces.
dalton99a
(81,569 posts)StrictlyRockers
(3,855 posts)I will use whatever means necessary to confront the birth of fascism in my country, including shouting from the rooftops to my 44k twitter followers. This implied threat of violent bikers defending trump is beyond laughable. This country is controlled by us, the people. Just try us, fella.
certainot
(9,090 posts)the left ignores talk radio
that is the real bully - 1500 corporate and russian think tank-coordinated radio stations with a few hundred ignorant lying assholes with limbaugh as point blowhard, reaching 50 mil a week with unchallenged lying and threats toward gop politicians who might cross him and enabling pols and media who have no clue where the real buzz is actually coming from and can't stop blaming fox..
all that talk radio would fold quick if the dem party and the progressive orgs started making examples of the companies and universities that support those stations
just boycott and protest the crap out of them until ad agencies have to start asking clients if they really want to support trump and global warming denial. pretty soon they'll have a few hundred stations left and trump will lose his invisible political 2x4
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)"He would make Germany great again."
Let's stop mincing words and call this fucking traitor trump exactly what he is - the modern incarnation of adolf hitler.
A Warning From History
A new biography of Hitler reminds us that there is more than one way to destroy a democracy.
By Richard J. Evans
February 28, 2017
"Hitler offered voters a vision of a better future, one he contrasted with the policies of the parties that had plunged the country into crisis in the first place. The poorest people in Germany voted for his opponents, notably the Communist Party and the moderate left-wing Social Democrats, but the lower-middle classes, the bourgeoisie, the unorganized workers, the rural masses, and the older traditionalistsProtestants and evangelicals who wanted a moral restoration of the nationswitched their votes from the mainstream centrist and right-wing parties (save for the Catholic Center Party) and gave them to Hitler instead.
Whereas other politicians seemed to dither or to act as mere administrators, Hitler projected purpose and dynamism. They remained trapped within the existing conventions of political life; he proved a master at denouncing those conventions and manipulating the media. The first politician to tour the country by air during an election campaign, Hitler issued an endless stream of slogans to win potential supporters over. He would make Germany great again. He would give Germans work once more. He would put Germany first. He would revive the nations rusting industries, laid to waste by the economic depression. He would crush the alien ideologiessocialism, liberalism, communismthat were undermining the nations will to survive and destroying its core values.
Ullrich quotes a police report on one of Hitlers early speeches, in which he used vulgar comparisons and did not shy away from the cheapest allusions. Hitlers language was never measured or careful, but like something merely expulsed. Yet, revising earlier opinions, Ullrich shows how carefully Hitler prepared his speeches. Seemingly spontaneous, they were in fact calculated. Full of base allegations and vile stereotypes, they were precisely designed to gain maximum attention from the media and maximum reaction from the crowds he addressed. When he declared that fines were of no use against those he called Jewish criminals, his listeners interrupted him with chants of Beatings! Hangings!
Aided by his talented propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, Hitler not only flaunted his vulgarity and exploited tribal hatreds; he also lied and lied his way to success. The Jews, he argued, had stabbed the German Army in the back in 1918; the politicians of the other parties, he insisted, were hopelessly venal and corrupt and should be put in jail; the Nazi thugs who were condemned to death in 1932 for the Potempa murders were victims of a monstrous blood-verdict; liberal newspapers that criticized Hitler were, as Goebbels put it, the Jewish lying press."
Read more:
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-ways-to-destroy-democracy/
I've read Ullrich's "Ascent" along with Snyder's "Black Earth" - I shudder to think what's coming if something isn't done soon. Or maybe that feeling that I have in the pit of my stomach is right - and it's too late already.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,913 posts)The author perhaps had time to reflect some on part of Truymp's presidential campaign while writing it (though book text is prepared well in advance of actual publication.) He did not however have time to observe the way Trump actually rules. A comparison to characters living may not have been wholly coincidental, but everything Trump has done over the last two years bears that comparison out.
Our Democracy is more robust and deeply rooted than that of Germany in the 30's. That make us more fascism disease resistant in comparison but it does not make us immune. Our defenses are under constant assault, they can not hold up indefinitely The next two years are critical. The text you quote reads like Trump's playbook.
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)I am awaiting the English version of Ullrich's Part II which is due to come out in 2020.
https://www.dw.com/en/new-hitler-biography-looks-into-dictators-personality/a-46387722
"The face of the Holocaust
The second volume of Volker Ullrich's analysis now examines Hitler's role as commander-in-chief as well as the part he played in the Holocaust. The book highlights that while thousands of helpers were required to execute the mass-murder of millions of European Jews, the events could never have unfolded without Hitler's presence."
I hope you're right about our disease resistance but our last vaccination is over seventy years old.
And the disease is surely on the rise again.
erronis
(15,328 posts)draconian. That we imposed a suffocating economic and reparations policy that made the fine Germans rebel.
I think the policy was horrible and the subsequent Marshall Plan (post WW-II) was far preferable.
But I also think that Hitler's rise is too neatly equated with the suffering of the German people.
Just like the rise of Jim Crow or the new RW supremacist movements.
They look for excuses for their extremism.
They'll find something - anything.
Doesn't matter what.
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)And well deserved.
Breaking The Treaty of Versailles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations
And invading the Rhineland.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hitler-reoccupies-the-rhineland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remilitarization_of_the_Rhineland
Well on his way to the Anschluss and the invasion of Poland, etc. We all know where this led and any excuse for hitler regarding suffocating penalties for Germany's actions in WWI are exactly what they deserved.
The Marshall Plan cost us billions to rebuild what hitler destroyed for nothing but his own insane power hungry hatred. Just like trump.
There is no excuse.
certainot
(9,090 posts)is still there is the left and dem orgs continue to ignore the only unique advantage he has - 1500 coordinated radio stations - the biggest political mistake in history
thats all he's got - everything he and his base are going on comes out of limbaugh's ass.
and there's a good chance he's working for trump and the russians have been feeding him for years
for this to morph the country into fascism while the left and all its city-living organization staff ignores republican/putin talk radio is the real disaster
Response to Tom Rinaldo (Original post)
sop This message was self-deleted by its author.
Firestorm49
(4,037 posts)Response to Firestorm49 (Reply #14)
Post removed
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Which is a polite way to let others know when they click 'My Posts' to look for replies to their messages, they don't need to look at the actual post because 'the whole thing' is the headline, which appears in full in the My Posts list.
UTUSN
(70,725 posts)StevieM
(10,500 posts)were actively seeking to help Trump win, or at least to help the eventual GOP nominee, whoever it ultimately was.
erronis
(15,328 posts)Like some real reporting vs. hearsay?
StevieM
(10,500 posts)Most people seem to be under the impression that Comey was fired for protecting Hillary.
In actual fact, he was technically fired for screwing her over. It is totally unacceptable to hold a press conference like the one he held in July or to do what he did when he re-opened the investigation in October and publicized it.
And he said that he opened his investigation based on a "public referral." Those were his words when testifying before congress. That means that the State Department IG office asked for it, so it happened. That is not a legitimate way for a person to find themselves under FBI investigation, much less for it to be made public knowledge.
certainot
(9,090 posts)because the left ignores it that buzz and it's real source it is considered legitimate instead of basically coming out of team limbaugh's ass.
and there's circumstantial evidence that putin has been feeding limbaugh since at least 2008 when manafort was mccain's campaign cochair and limbaugh wouldn't support mccain until minutes after mccain chose palin- who was being wooed by russian oil and gas