— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) June 30, 2018
Of course, Trump has been a serial fantasist, and proud racist, since at least the 1980s. But some of you will remember that when Ronald Reagan started insisting he’d helped liberate Dachau in person — and not just seen films about the horror — it was later cited as the first public evidence of his decline into Alzheimers.
The president claims ICE has liberated entire American towns from MS-13, which is something I've never seen on the news. Sounds like a topic you should hold special Senate hearings on, sir. Because surely he's not lying. https://t.co/ndjyyrCsQz
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) June 30, 2018
If the president of the United States had watched ICE liberate a town, the probability that we would have seen live video feed of it is 100 percent.
— Eric Rauchway (@rauchway) June 30, 2018
"Everyone agrees [MS-13] is bloodthirsty. [But] most of the other assertions I've heard from the Trump admin…have almost no connection to what I'm seeing…The gang is not invading the country. They're not posing as fake families. They're not growing." https://t.co/PiDsDao6tR
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 30, 2018
… When confronted last week with audio obtained by ProPublica of wailing children separated from their parents, White House Communications Adviser Mercedes Schlapp said, “What’s very heartbreaking is to watch Americans who have lost their children because of the MS-13 gang members.” But the vast majority of MS-13 victims are young immigrants, many of them undocumented.
I often think about this when I’m out reporting. This year, I have reached out to current gang members and added them as friends on Facebook. I’ve visited the homes of people on the local clique’s kill list, and heard their police-issued panic buttons hum under tables and behind doors. I’ve explored the wooded areas Long Island police call “the killing fields,” where bodies have been found. I feel safe doing this because MS-13 rarely goes after true outsiders — people who are not friends with any gang members or targets for recruitment. The closest I’ve found in Long Island to a totally random victim was a worker at a Central American deli who was hurt when a bullet passed through the head of a targeted victim.
The White House put out a statement last month that described recent murders carried out by “MS-13 animals.” Lost in the controversy over whether it was OK to call gang members animals was the fact that of the six identified victims, five were immigrants and the other was a child of immigrants…
This is of course ridiculous, but the ease with which Republicans have transitioned from fear-mongering about the Soviet Union/Communists to al Qaeda/Islamic jihadists to MS-13/immigrants is … instructive https://t.co/ZgHEYWBrLT
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) June 30, 2018
TRUMP on immigration: "You get rid of ICE, you will be afraid to walk out of your house… how about Long Island? They actually liberate towns."
(FACT CHECK: Not a single town in America has been liberated from MS-13.) pic.twitter.com/yDYhozm1KJ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 1, 2018
Fantasy Tough Guy Squads are protecting Granpa Dollhands and his dumbest most loyal followers from the dusky rapists hiding under their beds! WHY MUST YOU LIE-BRALS BE SUCH HATERZ AS TO DENY THE IMAGINARY RAPISTS UNDER OUR BEDS!?! WHY CAN YOU NOT RESPECT THAT WE ARE TRULY SCARED!!!
Of course, abusing actual undocumented humans doesn’t “cure” whatever personal terrors drive their voters’ xenophobia, but fortunately for the Repubs, there’s always another batch of SCARY NOT-LIKE-US MONSTERS masks to gin up the rubes.
NobodySpecial
This is where the insularity of the Trump voter works so well for Trump. I live in a town where west of the river (or even approaching the river) is supposedly a no-go area for nice white folks. They’re always surprised I’m not dead when I tell them I’ve lived all my life in that area, and the only time I ever had my house broken into was a white guy. One of my longer term acquaintances had to make a trip out to areas where I used to work and live and told me later he was surprised at how nice the houses were out there. I had to explain to him again that a lot of the local residents were older people who had worked for decades at places like Chrysler, had good money, but ended up on that side of town because nice white folks wouldn’t let them move into their exclusive neighborhoods. Maybe this time it stuck.
Major Major Major Major
Man, that’s quite a lie, even by Republican/Trump standards.
Jeffro
Not a bad thing for every Democratic candidate to mention on a regular basis : all the Republicans have to offer you is fear in the hope of getting you to vote for otherwise foolish/cruel/bankrupt policies (usually, ones that line their own pockets)
Ruckus
I’m pretty sure drumpf believes every word that comes out of his mouth. He has long had little connection to reality and now has seemingly even far less. He’s the original toxic narcissist, his bullshit reenforces his bullshit. He’s caught in the circle jerk that is his mind. Unfortunately we have to experience it as well.
Suzanne
There was a great piece in the Atlantic that I linked on my FB page about evangelical fear, and how fear is explicitly a non-Biblical response to be overcome, not catered to.
Was also reading about Michael Kimmel’s work on masculinity, and he named the sense of “aggrieved entitlement” that so many white men in this country face. In short, white men always had an expectation for their lives that they would easily be able to reach the middle class, and now that they have to compete in a more diverse and global marketplace, they are losing. This is deeply terrifying to them.
Jeffro
@NobodySpecial: I can relate. My wife and I take the kids down to DC every chance we get..,my elderly white mom acts as if we’re walking into a war zone.
Other than getting scalped…for concert tickets, and gouged..,at the bars, we’re probably in just about the safest place on the planet
gene108
I just can’t even with the unprincipled lying anymore. Anyone not calling out Trump’s blatant lies is just as guilty as he is.
Heidi Mom
@NobodySpecial: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard warnings like this in relatively small communities in central PA: “Don’t drive through that section of town at night.” “If you’re going there, take a knife.” “Be sure to lock your car doors if you drive through there.” “There,” of course, always refers to a place where people of darker complexion and, usually, lower income reside. And if you do gather up your courage and drive through “there,” all you see is people going about their lives and, probably, doing the best they can with what they have. Years ago I decided to always lock my car doors because: 1) there could be a maniac anywhere; and 2) more importantly, then I don’t have to decide whether “there” is safe or not.
Suzanne
@Jeffro:
While it would undoubtedly fan the flames of the culture war (God, that is a terrible metaphor), I honestly think that urbanites should loudly and frequently point out that rural areas have higher rates of crime, welfare dependency, and illegal drug use per capita than urban areas. Then we should start reacting like we are going into WT Fallujah when we enter a rural town. Seriously. They act like Chicago is a crime-infested shithole when it’s West Pigsknuckle, Kentucky that is filled with addicts and gunhumpers.
A Ghost To Most
@Jeffro:
Do you have to pay MS-13 protection money for safe passage?
/trumpist
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Nope. Trump once admitted that he lied about US trade deficits to Trudeau and enjoyed it. Trump sees this as part of the art of the deal, what you do to get what you want.
Also, he expects his staff to lie. One of his ambassadors falsely claimed that there were “no go” areas in Europe. And Trump hints that towns in Europe need to be liberated from Muslims.
There is a vile method to his madness.
cthulhu
MS-13 operates in the area I live though I have no concern about them AT ALL. Interestingly the gangs in LA, some of which have existed since the 1940’s or earlier and primarily Mexican-Hispanic in origin, refer to rise of MS-13 in LA as “the invasion.” Still, gang crime is generally and significantly down from what it was when MS-13 was first expanding. This is an issue that local law enforcement can take care of.
Major Major Major Major
A fantastical respite: I just enjoyed this short story about a young woman going to a centaur college.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Suzanne:
I’m scared too, but I don’t blame minorities. I blame GOP policies.
The Ancient Randonneur
As I noted a few threads back in 10-14 days the Babbling Half-Bright Atavist in the White House will swear up and down that ICE is liberating movie theaters from the PG-13’s.
Oh, and Fuck Trump.
BlueDWarrior
The biggest meta problem we have to face in our politics is just this: there is 30-some odd percent of the polity that’d rather wallow in abject fantastical fear than deal with the world as it is. Unfortunately, we have yet to find the codeword to break them out of this dystopian fantasy to bring them back to the real world.
I hope we do soon…
Gravenstone
@Brachiator: Is it the as t he expects his minions to lie? Or is that he attracts like minded buffoons who will gladly say any outrageous thing that pops into their empty heads in furtherance of their goals?
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I agree that for most of his life he may have known he was lying. But he’s been lying for so long that separating out the truth has become a lost skill for him. And I do believe that he is suffering from dementia, which makes separating out the truth and lies run from almost impossible to absolutely impossible. And he is being “advised” by people just as vile as he is. Which makes knowing what are lies and what isn’t even harder.
Dan B
@NobodySpecial: We live in the majority minority part of Seattle, very white liberal Seattle. It’s the lowest crime rate in the city. 59 languages are spoken. Pramila Jayapal is our rep in congress. We feel wierdly out of place in whiter parts of town and in rural parts of the state. We never see Trump signs in the hood. I bet they’re afraid.
Suzanne
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I’m not scared of mediocre white dudes having to step up their efforts to compete. While I want everyone to have basic needs met with a 40-hour workweek, I firmly believe that it is reasonable for incomes to vary between people based on amount of education, experience, and specialized skill.
Major Major Major Major
@Suzanne:
Neoliberal sellout!
eta //
raven
@NobodySpecial: I was born in Brooklyn !!!!
Ruckus
@Gravenstone:
Well it’s probably both. @Brachiator: has a point, he has said he’s lying at times. But as I also said above he seems to be unable now to know when he’s lying. And really his lying is so bad that even if he’s fully competent, his lying is horrible because it’s in furtherance of racist and idiotic policies that do not accomplish anything he says he wants. That’s why I said he’s always lying, his lying doesn’t make him look better because he’s so bad at it that it is obviously a lie.
His lips are moving, he’s lying.
Duane
@gene108: You have to give Trump credit for one thing. He’s a helluva conman.
raven
We’re in the second shootout of the day in the world cup.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
There’s no fucking way to tell any longer whether he’s lying or whether he believes the shit he says. I don’t think it matters either way. I don’t think it’s senility though. I think it’s his desperate insecurity. Whatever he needs to be true at any one time to help him feel big and tough and better about himself, well, that’s what’s true. If what he needs to be true changes three minutes later, then the truth changes. I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it. That’s why he seems so befuddled when people tell him he’s lying. In his mind [sic], he isn’t lying.
Major Major Major Major
@Duane: God, he isn’t even a very good conman though, is he? I’ll admit that I don’t know much about real-life cons, but he seems (to me) to be extremely, stupidly obvious about it. Like, worse than the Republican Party overall.
mawado
I have this awful fear that Kirstjen Nielsen is telling DJT these things and he believes it.
Mnemosyne
@cthulhu:
LAPD is justifiably proud that they have managed to reduce the activities of MS-13 in the city without turning back into a Darryl Gates-style lock ’em up if they have a Spanish last name force.
Jeffro
@Suzanne: I think that’s a great idea. We oughta be punching back, and if it’s with the facts, so much the better.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Suzanne:
I don’t disagree and I wasn’t arguing with you. I meant that I’m worried that I won’t be able stay middle class or that I’ll end up homeless etc because of forces outside of my control. I guess my point is that I’m blaming the people actually at fault for a lot of what’s going wrong in this country.
Villago Delenda Est
““I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.”
MAGAts live to be afraid, it seems. To be a MAGAt is to be a coward.
Dorothy Winsor
@Major Major Major Major: Yes! It’s like he’s not even trying to deceive most people. He’s just babbling what seems useful to him at the time. It’s like he lacks whatever the verbal equivalent of object permanence is. I find is almost impossible to read his tweets or statements without feeling disconcerted. I’d have to go back and disassemble almost every word to make sense. It hurts my head.
Litlebritdifrnt
Of course Donny Dollhands personally saw ICE liberate towns from MS-13, the same way he saw muslims celebrating on tower blocks after 911. The man lives in his own world, sadly the rest of us have to live with the consequences.
Thoughtful David
@Duane:
@Major Major Major Major:
Yes, he’s actually a terrible conman. The problem is that he has a tremendous support network of other liars and grifters, crooks and haters, that are using him as their opportunity to smash and grab everything they’ve wanted.
If it were just Trump, he would have been ended long ago. But it’s the entire treasonous Republican Party and their treasonous mouthpieces that are doing this.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
My respite was reading A Gentleman In Moscow, which was as charming and poignant as I had been promised. The author brought it to a surprising but still optimistic ending and his use of the omniscient narrator was masterful. It gave it the air of a classic Russian novel, which was of course part of the point.
Jeffro
@A Ghost To Most:
j
I used to, but ever since they partnered with EZ-Pass, it’s a breeze…you just drive under the scanner on the 14th Street bridge and voila! One toll pays for it all! Museums, concerts, restaurants, protest marches – all ours! Thanks, MS-13 and EZ-Pass!!
germy
videosculturalconvergencemedia
jl
They talk like MS-13 is a foreign invading force. Has any reporter confronted Trump or Trumpsters with the fact that MS-13 started in the US? The international dimension to MS-13 was exported from the US to other countries.
Until the 1950s, the US border to the South was largely ‘open most’ of the time, in the sense that there were no quotas on immigration for independent countries in Latin America, including Mexico. Hispanic immigration was not perceived as a threat. The GOP decided to ramp up a bogus and nonsensical demographic threat after they decided that their plan to capture Hispanics as GOP voters would not work well enough to solve their demographic problem. So, I have to view the whole Hispanic immigration crisis as a giant fraud, a Big Lie from start to finish.
And the old timers in my family told how things were better when people could come and go as they saw fit back in the ‘before times’.
My views might seem radical to some. I admit that my views are partly due to spending so much of my life working side-by-side with Hispanics, citizens, legal, and (maybe, who knows, people didn’t poke their noses into it much) undocumented immigrants.
Maybe if bad and counterproductive US immigration policies towards Hispanics had not produced a large and bottled up population living in the legal shadows here, MS-13 would not have established itself so firmly. So, Big Lies and dishonest policies produce bad problems, which humanity has seen many times before in its history. We’d still have bad problems anyway, so why produce more than we need to have?
germy
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-russia-must-be-proud-of-meddling.html
Brachiator
@Gravenstone:
RE: Is it the as t he expects his minions to lie? Or is that he attracts like minded buffoons who will gladly say any outrageous thing that pops into their empty heads in furtherance of their goals?
It should be pretty clear by now that Trump expects and demands that people lie for him. Also, he doesn’t just attract empty heads and like minded buffoons. He listens to and has assembled a staff of advisers who are long time nativists and racists, who have “intellectual” reasons for their beliefs that are in sync with Trump’s own fundamental bigotry.
It is clear that Trump uses the powers of the presidency to make his bigotry into policy, and he expects his people to lie in order to carry out his decisions.
Also, Trump’s people cannot just say anything they want. What they say must push Trump doctrine.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
I am just old enough to put a huge share of the blame on Reagan’s cruel asylum policies of the 1980s, where we deported people who were fleeing from governments whose death squads we supported and only accepted refugees from countries who had death squads we didn’t like. That cruelty and hypocrisy has distorted the debate about Latino immigrants ever since.
jl
And to amplify a little, there is an underappreciated problem with the bogus and very bad Hispanic immigration policies which people out in the sticks have been aware of for a long time. Overly strict and unnecessarily harsh immigration policies produced a problem of a bottled-up and stuck population of Hispanic, particularly Mexican, immigrants here in the US. Until the 1950s, there had been a large population of Mexican workers and, actually, all sorts of people who came and went as economic and personal circumstances changes. As the border closed and everyone had to put up with border BS, traveling back and forth became more difficult and dangerous. Gong back to visit family, take care of business, taking a good job opportunity in Mexico, became harder, and people just camped out in the US more or less permanently. That is what I meant by a large population stuck in the legal shadows in the US. And I have to wonder how much that development led to things like MS-13 arising and firmly establishing itself inside the US.
I understand that due to problems with drug cartels, and human trafficking, and modern international terrorism, we can’t have really open borders like we did for Latin America like we did for a hundred years up to the 1950s. Now we have to keep much more careful track of who is coming and going. But a very restrictive immigration policy organized around a bogus economic and demographic threat, and perceived threat to GOP voting demographics, has been very counterproductive and has led to very dangerous and bad results.
GEx
@Jeffro: They always choose to vote for racism over polices that help them as Lee Atwater told us they would. I don’t see how making explicit the deal they implicitly agreed to helps.
A Ghost To Most
@Jeffro:
Good idea. I could’ve used that when I was living in MS-13 controlled Middletown MD.
gene108
@BlueDWarrior:
Part of the issue is right wing media keeps them in a perpetual state of fear. Depending on where get your news, your reality will differ
GEx
@Suzanne: Which tells us a lot about how they really understand meritocracy to work. First you weed out all us other people so they don’t have to compete against us. Then they pretend that their achievement is based on merit and competition.
M4
@Mnemosyne: ah, one does hear such good things about that book.
frosty fred
@Mnemosyne:
I would have said Reagan’s cruelty and hypocrisy had distorted the debate about virtually any and everything, ever since.
ETA: speaking of senile delusions.
GEx
Years ago Kate’s friend from WI moved in with us. One day I took the light rail downtown to see a Twins game and that friend asked her, incredulously, if she was letting me do that. The big city is scary, you see. That’s where the black people are. And what’s with that “letting” me do something I want to do? Small minded authoritarian types would be so sad if they weren’t so dangerous.
Ksmiami
@BlueDWarrior: blow up Fox and the rt wing echo chamber then we can talk
Aleta
He knows he lies, imo. Racist all his life and has no feelings for children except as property. Property to him means “Take it from others” + “Hurt anyone who opposes you”+ “Lie and double cross as much as needed to get what you want.” In this context his lies are true to his younger self, not confusion.
Although it’s possible others including Jared are writing script for him.
All he sees is immigrants who ‘didn’t follow his orders.’ For that he will punish them; hurting parents is a pleasure to him. His followers love it because they’re fascist sadists. The Bible to them is permission to punish.
Bex
@Suzanne: Could you post a link to the Atlantic article about fear?
cliosfanboy
@Suzanne: to be fair I do feel more comfortable in DC (And in DC proper not the tourist areas) than in small rural towns.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
I think that you are falsely presuming that separating truth from lies is or should be important for someone like Trump. He has been a salesman, a showman, a con man, a liar all his life. And he has been rich and powerful enough to get his way. This is what matters to him. The truth is what you can get people to believe.
He only cares about what makes him look good. And as I noted before, he uses the power of the presidency to exert his will. And as president, what he wants from his people is praise, loyalty and obedience. He wants this from the American people as well, but that’s a harder sell.
Trump’s lies are consistently self-serving. They make him look good or support some policy goals. And his ego prevents him from admitting error or backing down. He doesn’t care about the truth.
So, I am not concerned about whether Trump separates truth from lies. We are long beyond that. But that he expects the government of the United States to bend to his will, and that he expects officials of the government to lie, this is a whole different level of evil.
Separate issue. If Trump is suffering from a mental disorder, who is going to certify it?
Also, if Trump could separate truth from lies, would this magically make him a better president?
Are you saying that he is not responsible for his bad actions because of his purported dementia?
Mnemosyne
@M4:
I’m sure it will be a movie soon and they’ll ruin it. ? IMO it’s so popular because the language is light and frothy, but it’s about very serious events that do not turn out well for everyone, so it keeps you worried about how things are going to turn out for Alexander and his loved ones.
You also can’t help loving the main character because he’s willing to adapt to his circumstances as needed without ever losing his values or integrity.
Yarrow
@Suzanne:
I think addressing the fear and refusing to let it rule is is a massive opening for Democrats. Obama did some of that–Hope and Change, Yes We Can. Both of those slogans are ways to counter fear. Democrats could go further with something like, “We are Americans and we do not let fear rule us.” It’s bullshit because that’s all we’ve done since 9/11, but whatever. Fake it til you make it. My point is that sort of strategy a way Democrats can both counter the fear-based Republican message and have a strong, positive message.
jl
@Brachiator: I agree. And in any case, Trump’s racist and ‘always be swindling’ mindset has been operating for his whole adult life. Watch old interviews and talk show appearances, and you see him talking the same nonsense about foreign affairs as cash cow grifting opportunity, and how the whole world is taking the US to the cleaners, and identical BS back in the 80s and 90s.
The racism and OG swindler approach to everything is a pre-existing condition. He is what he is, whether he is going demented or not.
gene108
@jl:
You are from CA, which probably has always had a sizeacle Latino population. I grew up in NC from 5th grade through college. By the time I got out of college, in 1996, there was such a large influx of Latinos, we had a Spanish language radio station in Raleigh. Now there are several.
There has been more change in small towns.
I can see how such rapid change can cause a backlash. Change is hard. People like constants in life.
And Republicans have decided to milk this to further animosity for political advantage, which helps no one in the long run.
cthulhu
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, early on, there was some concern that MS-13 was “different” but now LAPD manages them like any other gang. Lots of contact and quick intervention using these connections whenever there is a murder so things don’t get further out of hand.
The LA Times has their Homicide Report where you can find information about every murder in the county since 2000. One thing is clear, if you are female, you are far, far more likely to be killed by a (male) significant other or family member and it is not very common at that. Even if you are male, if you are white and over 40, your risk is likewise pretty low. And yet these tend to be the demographics that include the people who most worry about being the victims of random gang violence.
Dorothy Winsor
@Brachiator: I did not know Reagan had dementia at the time. I probably wasn’t paying attention and he always sounded kind of smarmy goofy to me. But insiders knew. I wonder what insiders know about Trump and whether we’ll ever find out.
Gvg
The classic saying that if you tell a lie big enough people will believe it is wrong. Trumps latest lies are just silly. But in his position any President can be surrounded by yes men only, none of the past ones were THAT stupid. And he sees nothing wrong with letting them get rich off taxes so it’s worth it to the really corrupt to flatter him. He needs ….oh never mind him. His real cultists idiots need multiple people to react with scornful laughter to these super dumb lies repeated.
Lesson, never equate the CEO of a private family company with a real CEO of a corporation with boards that can fire him.
Middle class have been losing ground for decades. Problem is these white not deep thinkers insist on blaming the wrong causes. They feel that various ethnic others must be stealing their jobs. Not liking those not of your tribe is perfectly natural and only human, but it’s wrong and self destructive. Bad tax policy is a bunch of our problem. It’s also lots of other things and complicated and hard to fix so it doesn’t sell well in elections.
jl
@gene108: I can understand that. Out here, a common saying among Whites out in the boondocks who worked with Hispanics or employed them, or went golfing with Hispanic friends at the local cheapo run-down public course, was ‘Well, hell, they were here before we were.” And most Trumpster Whites out in the sticks in Central Valley I come across just walk off when you bring up the big Hispanic immigration scare. They know they have no response. City bigots there are different, though. I can understand how the situation is different in other parts of the country.
But, how is it, historically, different from Jewish, Italian, slavic, immigrants in late 19th and early 20th century. Or in late 18th and early 19th century, German immigrants (even if most of them came from no ‘Germany’ back then but a bunch of little tinpot duchies and dukedoms?) In the long run, I don’t see anything different.
Just tell everyone that Thomas Jefferson’s recommended to his kids and cousins and nephews that everyone in the US learn Spanish anyway. I don’t have time to find the quote now. Why not take a Founder’s advice? Isn’t that the patriotic thing to do?
Duane
@Major Major Major Major: @Major Major Major Major: Agree with everything you said. It seems so obvious. Yet it works. I never thought he’d be where he is now. That’s why fighting back is a must. He has power, supporters, and is extremely dangerous.
burnspbesq
@Jeffro:
Does MS-13 also get a cut of all Metro fares collected at Clarendon?
jl
@Dorothy Winsor: ” whether we’ll ever find out.”
Depends on whether the Trumsters win or not. If they do, everyone will be talking like that, believe me, to be a good person [in order to remain above suspicion]. You wanna be, like, MAGA, the best, winner! People don’t know it, but everyone says that.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
@Duane:
One of the most classic ways to con people is by making your marks feel like they’re smarter than you are. It lulls them into a false sense of security and lets them think that they’ll be able to spot the con.
Also related: you can’t cheat an honest man. If Republicans didn’t want to believe Donnie’s racist, xenophobic, and sexist patter, he never would have gotten the nomination.
Gravenstone
@Brachiator: I would argue that a relative minority of people in Trump’s orbit were brought in by Trump directly. The majority, and the most dangerous ones came from more established Conservative bastions who recognized a useful idiot when they saw one. Sessions hitched his star to Trump early, and brought Stephen Miller along for the ride. Bannon and Conway were foisted off on Trump by the Mercers as part of the condition of helping finance his floundering (at the time) campaign. All his judicial choices are being farmed out the the Federalist Society. Many of his ambassadorships are also intended to actively subvert American diplomatic power and prestige. That sort of thing is entirely outside of Trump’s experience or focus.
What I’d love to know if who sold him on his most egregious Cabinet officers? Devos, Pruitt, Mnuchin being the big three. I guess we can view Devos as being well known in Conservative circles for her family’s long term role in fucking up Michigan politics. But the other two had to be darlings in some portion of the Conservasphere who in turn got sold to Trump. Through Pence maybe (although he was pushed on Trump by Bannon, so circling once more back to the Mercers). But again, few of them likely came through Trump directly.
He’s a clown, albeit a dangerous one because yes he has seized on the power of his office to further his own twisted ideals (and enrich himself and his sprogs, because that was always job #1). But he’s basically just someone’s useful idiot. The key is whose (aside from the obvious choice of Putin).
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
I’m in an argument with a person on a podcast comment section for Ben Shapiro’s crappy podcast and I need a little help.
I claimed that the administration was closing legal ports of entry for asylum seekers.
I provided a Vox article to support what I was saying. Here it is: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/5/17428640/border-families-asylum-illegal
They replied that Vox is “known for getting information wrong.” The article referenced an NPR article that claimed a family from Central America was repeatedly turned away by CBP agents. Three family members were accepted because the agents only had room for “one family” which did not “quantify” to nine people.
The person went on to say that the Vox article only reference that claims are made that CBP agents are lying about being overcrowded and do not provide hard evidence that this is an actual policy, practice, or fact. CBP agents asking families to wait because they are at capacity is not illegal. And that the actions of individual CBP agents who do act deceptively do not actually reflect a policy of closing legal ports of entry.
Finally, they said that this isn’t to say that the situation of an understaffed and overwhelmed CBP isn’t contributing to problems with people seeking legal entry but to claim this is some administration wide effort to legal ports of entry is naive and biased.
KSinMA
@Bex:
I don’t know if this is the article Suzanne had in mind, but this one’s good:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/a-history-of-evangelical-fear/563558/
Suzanne
@GEx:
Truth. When they really have to compete in a free LABOR market, they don’t like it. According to Williams’ book, they don’t want to have to go to school, or move, or take a job coded as “woman’s work” like nursing.
After reading those books, I am increasingly convinced that we need to let the white male working class go, at least as a focused target of the Democratic coalition. If they want to come along for the ride, that’s fine, and we should still try to pursue policies that would improve their situations. But the future is urban, educated, multicultural, and globally-oriented, and they need to fall in line.
Suzanne
@KSinMA: That’s it.
gene108
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Right wingers try to side track you to make you defensive about your facts. They are not interested in learning g the truth, bush rather in you failing. They love to nitpick regarding guns, for example, to discredit you, rather than discussing the lacks of merit of there side.
WaPo article from a couple of weeks back saying the same thing. No one knows, if it is deliberate but it is happening causing people to come in for asylum at non-posts of entry, which is not illegal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/at-the-us-border-asylum-seekers-fleeing-violence-are-told-to-come-back-later/2018/06/12/79a12718-6e4d-11e8-afd5-778aca903bbe_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6478b7225a25
gene108
@gene108:
One more link om same issue from April
http://www.newsweek.com/caravan-asylum-seekers-turned-away-us-border-told-crossing-full-905446
evodevo
@Suzanne: Eggzackly….our neighboring rural county has more crazy white trash and methheads and crime than inner city Lexington/Louisville. The local paper there prints the police daily incident reports (not just actual arrests or whatever) and they are fascinating. The general level of “Duh!” is way over normal lol – Floriduh got nothin’ on us!
CliosFanBoy
@burnspbesq: no, the Vietnamese gangs still own that franchise. MS-13 controls Court House.
gene108
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-trump-administration-is-completely-unraveling-the-us-asylum-system
Another good article.
1. Border crosSings are at relatively low levels including asylum seekers
2. The “crisis” at the border is a direct result of the zero tolerance policy.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@gene108:
Thank you. I think I’m going to declare this a lost cause and just give up. I don’t believe I can convince this dick of anything. They’re just making excuses.
Peale
@gene108: yep. They are creating a crisis to make it appear that they are doing something. What they want is to eventually get at their larger goal of reducing the numbers of Mexicans and Central Americans in the country. Children create problems. Now they want to hold the families of these hostages indefinitely with their children. Once that is the new normal, they’ll go after the children with LPL status when they want to deport one of their parents. Then their actual wet dream-holding the us citizen “anchor babies” in detention. They want a way to get those kids deported with their parents since currently they can’t deport citizens.
efgoldman
@Jeffro:
Thirty+ years ago, mrs efg’s siblings (who grew up in an insular, white racist town South of Boston) couldn’t believe that we actually lived in close proximity to Boston and Cambridge, and lived to tell about it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@NobodySpecial: I and my friends has the exact same experience with Oakland, CA. What a lot of people don’t get is these drug gangs are about SELLING drugs and white people are their customers.
efgoldman
@burnspbesq:
Maybe that’s why our daughter switched from Metro to the bus. The fact that the stop is directly outside her apartment complex might have something to do with it.
Brachiator
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
RE: They replied that Vox is “known for getting information wrong.”
Sorry, that is not a rebuttal. It’s not even a good evasion.
Bex
@KSinMA: Thanks.
Felony Govt
@Brachiator: They do that all the time. Snopes suddenly is “liberal” and “biased”. Newsweek, the L.A. Times, you name it, is not to be trusted. It’s next to impossible trying to present facts to these people.
Brachiator
@Gravenstone:
RE: I would argue that a relative minority of people in Trump’s orbit were brought in by Trump directly. The majority, and the most dangerous ones came from more established Conservative bastions who recognized a useful idiot when they saw one.
It’s a mutual admiration society. Trump is a known bigot who pushes a racist immigration policy. It really does not matter that somebody else Drew up the list of prospective staff and advisers.
Trump wants people who kiss his ass and execute his will.
Anything else is just a matter of detail.
And he doesn’t seem to be the typical useful idiot in that no one has yet got him to sign off on something that he didn’t already want. And some of his decisions, like tariffs, goes against the typical conservative agenda.
gwangung
@Felony Govt: It’s the “La la la la! I can’t hear you” defense.
Amir Khalid
I have a question. Many years ago, when in San Diego on assignment, I was taken to visit Tijuana for an afternoon. At the border crossing, our guide pointed out the many Mexicans who commuted every day to jobs in America. Are there still a lot of such people? If the Trump has been closing legal points of entry from Mexico, how much are they affected?
Felony Govt
@Amir Khalid: Yes, I believe there are still considerable number of people who live in Mexico and work in the San Diego area. I think there’s a special program set up for them to make it easier for them to come and go, kind of a “trusted entrant” program.
Tokyokie
@Jeffro: When I travel, I like to get a T-shirt from a school in the city I’m visiting, and the best places to find those are at the on-campus bookstores. Thus, the last time I was in D.C., I went out to Howard to buy some, along with my Asian wife and my nephew-in-law-to-be. My nephew-in-law was a bit leery about doing this, but I assured him he had nothing to worry about. We might have gotten a few double-takes, but we weren’t in any kind of danger. What I’ve learned from traveling on three continents is that as long as you don’t act like an asshole, which means showing an interest in the people whose home you’re visiting, people universally respond with kindness. But right-wingers think that acting like assholes is their God-given privilege, never mind that Golden Rule stuff.
ohthatguy
soooo…how many towns remain under MS13 control? How much US territory has been lost? Obviously, if we have lost cities to a hostile force, someone has that information. Make Sanders answer