The Trump Presidency

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Oh Sean, Sean...Sean...Sean...don't you know that NO good can ever come from comparing ANYTHING to Hitler?

Sean Spicer - note to self, never compare anything to Hitler

WASHINGTON — Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, set off an intense backlash on Tuesday when he suggested that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria was worse than Hitler and said incorrectly that Hitler had not used chemical weapons during World War II or against his own people.

Mr. Spicer was attempting to lend gravity to the actions of Mr. Assad, who United States officials believe used sarin gas, a lethal chemical weapon, in an attack on a rebel-held area of Idlib Province last week that killed dozens.

Hitler oversaw a network of extermination camps where gas chambers were used to kill millions of Jews and others deemed to be harmful to the German state.

“We didn’t use chemical weapons in World War II. You know, you had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons,” Mr. Spicer said.


Yeah, I mean everyone knows that it's actually Spicer's boss who is "literally worse than Hitler," right? /sarcasm
 
This is a pretty long but I thought incredibly interesting article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/...merican-right-trump-proved-me-wrong.html?_r=0

The historian, Rick Perlestein, lays out the literature review of how historians have looked at conservatism in America - including his own - and how it should be updated and re-looked with the ascension of President Trump to the top of conservative politics.

I recently read Perlestein's three books on the rise of modern conservatism and found them excellent.

If you like reading about history as a process of scholarship or about political history in general it's very interesting. If you're sensitive about the darker sides of conservatism and President Trump's association to those things - racism, anti-immigrant violence, etc. - this article is probably not something you'll enjoy.
 
This is a pretty long but I thought incredibly interesting article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/...merican-right-trump-proved-me-wrong.html?_r=0

The historian, Rick Perlestein, lays out the literature review of how historians have looked at conservatism in America - including his own - and how it should be updated and re-looked with the ascension of President Trump to the top of conservative politics.

I recently read Perlestein's three books on the rise of modern conservatism and found them excellent.

If you like reading about history as a process of scholarship or about political history in general it's very interesting. If you're sensitive about the darker sides of conservatism and President Trump's association to those things - racism, anti-immigrant violence, etc. - this article is probably not something you'll enjoy.

Pay Wall.
 
This is a pretty long but I thought incredibly interesting article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/...merican-right-trump-proved-me-wrong.html?_r=0

The historian, Rick Perlestein, lays out the literature review of how historians have looked at conservatism in America - including his own - and how it should be updated and re-looked with the ascension of President Trump to the top of conservative politics.

I recently read Perlestein's three books on the rise of modern conservatism and found them excellent.

If you like reading about history as a process of scholarship or about political history in general it's very interesting. If you're sensitive about the darker sides of conservatism and President Trump's association to those things - racism, anti-immigrant violence, etc. - this article is probably not something you'll enjoy.

I wonder if President Trump is "at the top of conservative politics" or if he is simply the current leader of the Republican Party.
 
I wonder if President Trump is "at the top of conservative politics" or if he is simply the current leader of the Republican Party.

I think it's fair to place the elected President - or even presidential candidate - of the 'conservative' party as being at the top of conservative politics. There's certainly an argument to be made President Trump is not traditionally conservative, that the Republican party has digressed from conservatism, or that President Trump isn't really the head of several things. Still, I think when making those cases it's an uphill battle given the history of the party system in the US and the primacy of the Presidency.

Not sure what to do if folks are running into a pay wall. The link works for me. I'll try sharing on FB and see if others have better luck.
 
Linked work fine for me, the post was just TL;DR. I stopped reading when it started talking about the "2nd Klan." At least there were no Hitler comparisons.

It might be that Thunder may have read all of the free posts the NYT allowed for this month or something. That happens to me sometimes.
 
I posted the article to facebook. Immediately got three 'likes' from three different individuals whose profiles said they were from different cities in Georgia - the one in the former USSR. Each of them linked a story beneath the article.

I deleted their stories and updated my facebook settings so hopefully I won't become a vehicle by which euro-trolls steal my friends' and families' identities but holy shit - definitely going to have to tighten my internet game.
 
Apparently the Easter Egg Roll is such a tradition we must not stop it, we must swipe at the administration...What’s This About a Controversy Surrounding the Annual White House Easter Egg Roll?

I thought this wasn't a Christian Nation? Because this is one of those waste and abuse things in my eyes. But the reality is the liberal media is outraged about nothing.

What? You got Vogue as per of the liberal media?

Isnt Vogue a social and style magazine? Why don't you calm down?
 
What? You got Vogue as per of the liberal media?

Isnt Vogue a social and style magazine? Why don't you calm down?
It's the only thing that I haven't been put behind a pay wall this month already. It's in the NYT, Washington Post, et al. I first saw it in an Occupy link from an old prof.
 
I'm going to be one hundo percent transparent. A part of me really wants to say DUH!!!!! The other part of me wants to think that the president really believed these things, has been educated, and now has changed his mind. A third part of me thinks that all the things he said were to rally an already fearful base of people to vote for him...

President Trump Reverses on Candidate Trump’s Economic Views
 
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I'm going to be one hundo percent transparent. A part of me really wants to say DUH!!!!! The other part of me wants to think that the president really believed these things, had been educated, and now had changed his mind. A third part of me thinks that all the things he said were to rally an already fearful base of people to vote for him...

President Trump Reverses on Candidate Trump’s Economic Views

I saw a blurb the other day talking about how fluid POTUS Trump has been so far. The paraphrase was something like, "As far as a Trump Doctrine has been developing, it seems to be not being bogged down by doctrine." It sounded like he had been showing more willingness to listen to advisors than he was expected to. I hope that is true, and isn't just an administration fluff piece. I want President Trump to do well, for the sake of this country.
 
I saw a blurb the other day talking about how fluid POTUS Trump has been so far. The paraphrase was something like, "As far as a Trump Doctrine has been developing, it seems to be not being bogged down by doctrine." It sounded like he had been showing more willingness to listen to advisors than he was expected to. I hope that is true, and isn't just an administration fluff piece. I want President Trump to do well, for the sake of this country.

I think it's also fair to say he has not been bogged down by his own statements and promises. I can definitely believe he's not tied to any firm ideology or doctrine. I just think it may be hard to tell when he's settled on a policy or course of action on any topic - because he's likely to change again without warning. I'm thinking of Syria, NATO, healthcare, birtherism, HRC jail-time, the IC, one-China policy, Israeli settlements, and wall payments as examples.
 
Like every politician before him.

Nope, President Trump is in a category by himself for statement reversals - I think any look at metrics of statement-to-statement or statement-to-actions will bear that out. I can see a credible case being made on whether that's a good thing (less tied to ideological rigidity, ability to adjust to changing situations, so fucking crazy the despots of the world are shitting their pants) but the idea his consistency is on par with other elected officials is, in my opinion, batshit crazy.
 
They all lie to you. Obama said he was gonna do this...didn't. Bush said he was gonna do this...didn't.

You can take it as a lie or purely as campaign rhetoric and how things change the moment you become the man.
 
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