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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35021 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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Watching the press briefing Trump gave... something in me finally broke.

I don't think it matters what you call Trumpism. I think that we've spent all of this time propping up a broken system with a broken man. I recoiled from the accelerationists who said they were using Trump to break the system because that just seems so destructive and vile, no better than the people who break Starbucks windows.

I thought: maybe he's a good man. Maybe we should give him a chance. And the Democrats are so vile in their baseless slander.

But the Dermocrats didn't make him give that speech on January 6th.

Hillary Clinton should have been jailed and she should still be in jail. There is nothing to be gained however from holding on to a tool that has run out of use.

I mean is there anyone out there who didn't understand why Democrats were in shrill hysterics about fascism? The man like to scare them, and I don't know if I believe that he had so much fun terrorizing the libs (it's so easy and someone has to do it) that he fell into it, or if... well, I just can't go down that road yet.

This criminal wasn't worth all of this divisiveness in our politics. Maybe the divisiveness was already there.

I regret my support for former president Trump and I want him to withdraw from public life. Nixon had the decency to step down when his time was up.

  • -28

Trump would spend the entirety of a second presidency narrowly pursuing revenge on those individuals who he believes have wronged him

At this point, that would actually be healthy for American politics.

I really, really don't think it would.

You might think it's deserved, but I don't see how it would make anything about the situation better. Dangerous precedent indeed.

Democratic politicians are, right now, using the criminal justice system to pursue their political enemies. That's already a bad situation. If the Democrats aren't going to do anything about that themselves -- and they clearly are not -- turnabout is the only thing that can get the US out of the situation.

Trump going after his personal enemies within the GOP (as discussed upthread) isn't turnabout - it's an escalation (viz-a-viz normalcy) or a distraction (viz-a-viz what Alvin Bragg is doing). Trump going after a druggie fuckup like Hunter Biden (which seems to be what most of the MAGA crowd away from this forum want) would also be a distraction. Turnabout would be Trump going after the key players on the other side of the table - particularly potential presidential candidates and key congressional leaders.

Going after the GOP wouldn't help, but attacking Joe Biden through Hunter would be useful turnabout. The biggest problem for that would be that Hunter may be too obviously legitimately dirty.

Turnabout doesn't help! It just says "welp, this is the new normal." I agree that bending over and taking it isn't going anywhere, but the best outcome for America is if the Democrats get massive voter backlash for this. That doesn't happen if it becomes common practice.

Democrats are not going to get voter backlash for it because their voters support it. Turnabout may make this a "new normal", but such an equilibrium allows for a truce to be arranged. The Republicans just bending over and taking it and counting on the conscience of Democratic voters to stop it results in no equilibrium at all, just a spiral into further abuse.

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