Green Is The New Blue - Trump Thread #166

[Spandauer]

Reflecting Pool was sabotaged!
Meloni is begging for me!
They're killing the grass!
Hormuz open!
Hormuz closed!
ICE is NICE!
Get rid of the B in dumb!
Windmills bad!
War!
Peace!
War!
I am a stable genius!

Thanks to @Justsaynonow for the thread title 😁

Trump’s Final Term Ends in: - Countdown Timer

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5540355-flaming-june-will-the-wheels-finally-fall-off-don-snoreleones-bus-trump-thread-165

Are you implying that he might get taken out by a rogue firework?

From your keyboard to God's monitor!

Urghh
Apart from the racism and Christian Nationalism, Americas been a country for 250 years. Can't they get their own culture to be proud of instead of pretending they are the rightful inheritors of British, Greek etc cultural achievements? In many senses Shakespeare for example is for everyone, all great works of literature are great because they express the human condition. I like Euripedes despite not being Greek. But I don't claim that England and specifically myself are the true cultural inheritors and guardians of Euripedes over and above the stupid Greeks who are too debased to understand their own history. (And yes, Shakespeare would have pronounced words with a rhotic R like Americans do now. That does NOT mean "actually Shakespeare and his contemporarys.woukd have spoken with an American accent." Linguistics is more complicated than that).

The real problem is America DOES have it's own history and cultural achievements. But it's harder to talk about those without acknowledging the black, Jewish or other minority contributions to those achievements. I can't think of anything major that was done ONLY by white American men. That's not how culture works. So instead there's a weird attempt to create a "white American culture" by hijacking historical European achievements. While also despising modern Europeans.

I have noticed from elsethread that Taylor Swift is totally upstaging Trump by throwing a massive wedding party today at Madison Square Garden. Good for her! It may not be her actual wedding – there is speculation that was elsewhere, earlier and totally quiet – but he will be going mad that someone he has declared he hates because she has made no secret of not supporting him is getting attention on what he had assumed was his (not America's, don't be silly) day of celebration.

AttaTaylor!

The real problem is America DOES have it's own history and cultural achievements.

Built on the bedrock of avoiding taxes and owning slaves. Time to restart the debate over art and artists again.

Shall we place our bets on the timing of the convenient assassination attempt that somehow justifies the cancelling of the mid-terms?

Hush, please. I don't want to have a Kindly Ones effect here.

I don't geddit.

What gets me is that the USA does have it's own culture. There were cities and cultures pre Columbus. But watch near any US western film or read any right wing website, and the native Americans are portrayed as primitive hunter gatherers always on the move and at war. But they had cities.

South American countries do celebrate their pre Columbian culture ( to varying levels). and Canada are well on the path of recognizing the wrongs against the people that where there first.

I wonder how Trump and his band feel when they visit any official Australian website and are met by this :

The Australian Government acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and acknowledges their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to the people, the cultures and the Elders past and present.

.

Why would all the states individually decide to cancel their elections ?

For now, the federal government has no say in state elections.

For now.

There was a group of less that friendly Greek gods (of vengeance) who were referred to not by their official name but as "the Kindly Ones" or "the Gracious Ones" in order to propitiate them or at least not to draw their attention. Saying what one wants and using their name at the same time, which affronts them because they take it as trying to make them do something, is a thing to avoid.

The joke is that the Greek euphemism is now the name by which practically everyone knows them if they don't just call them the Furies.

Perhaps the orange one could arrange an assassination attempt in all potential blue states and resolve the issue?

And the odds of one not succeeding then could be in the USA’s/world’s favour - did I actually type that! I should be getting concerned about my reaction levels to the orange man!

But if they were cancelled then I guess current incumbents remain? Would that be to the next elections or would they try to fit some in a different time?

Happy Birthday USA and to all who are living there - may you have a better year ahead 🍾

Yes there was a rich native American culture (and cultures unique to different groups within that). Since independence there has developed a rich American culture. I don't want to sound like I'm saying "ha ha the Americans have no culture". They do. What there isn't is a rich white American culture. So instead they try to invent the idea that there is a "white European" culture they are the true inheritors of. Purely because most of the people living in the UK or Europe in times long past were white then you could, if you squinted, argue that Mozart or Shakespeare are products of a white European culture. But it misses out the fact that even then there was considerable influence from elsewhere, and that besides 16th century ideas of race were different to white V black. Shakespeare wouldn't have considered himself sharing the same generic culture as a Spanish man by virtue of skin colour. So it also flattens down what makes the cultures of those times/places unique into a generic mush of "Europeness"**. And also tries to portray modern Europeans as debased in comparison.
And the upshot of all that is you get JD Vance lecturing us on what Tolkien really meant.

**This is especially the case for Ancient Greek culture. Apparently the real Greeks were all blonde haired and blue eyed and it's ok to portray that in films because Greece=Europe and Europe=white skin, blonde hair,blue eyes. Whereas having a Greek character played by a black woman is an outrage and historical innacuracy. Sigh.

The Independence Day parade in D.C. has apparently been cancelled due to expected extreme temperatures which could reach 45C.

I do feel sorry for the people and performers who had been due to take part as presumably they will be ordinary citizens who have been planning their routines etc for months.

However will this give 🍊💩 the excuse he needs to pull out of his appearance on stage (to repeat his rant about woke, commie Dumocrats) if it looks like no one is going to turn up? Will they just go straight to the fireworks?

Was just reading that everything on the Mall has closed down until 5pm because of the extreme heat - all the visitors have been sent away til then @Spandauer

Quote : " I do feel sorry for the people and performers who had been due to take part as presumably they will be ordinary citizens who have been planning their routines etc for months."

Both of them ?

I am joking :-)

Anyway, I reckon they should head down to a air con pub, and sup a Sam Adams beer while discussing US emissions and climate change.

Persephonia1966
JD Vance lecturing us on what Tolkien really meant.

Did he really do that? Sidey little git.

I'd love to hear Tolkien on what he really thought of JD Vance....

Oh, I see that he also said “Big fan of C.S. Lewis — really sort of like that era of English writers. I think they were really interesting. They were grappling, in part because of World War II, with just very big problems.” I wonder how much Charles Williams he's read, to name but one other Inkling. Or Evelyn Waugh, though he was too young to be in WWI. And it was WWI Tolkien and Lewis were grappling with, in the main, not WWII. Pah on Vance. I think Tolkien would have labelled him a man of the South and left it at that. Certainly there is no way he is Frodo. (Though I did once know a Hell's Angel called Strider, presumably from those books but well before the films came out: I am surprised Vance read them rather than just absorbing the Pete Jackson version.)

Remember that drive to repeal the 17th ?

Originally it was the state legislatures that appointed senators, not a direct public election.

I suppose this isn't the place to point out to Vance that CS Lewis wasn't English as he was born and partially educated in Northern Ireland

Context is that Usha Vance has a podcast about..... wait for it .... Literacy. And she interviewed Trump for it, and and and... there is a transcript.

USHA VANCE 00:01:44-00:01:48 (4 SEC)
Well, I'm sure they'll love it. Now, I know you brought a, a special book today.

DONALD TRUMP 00:01:48-00:02:24 (36 SEC)
I did. This was done by the White House Preservation and it's really very cute. Here's your coverage called Presidents Play! We don't play too much, right? And it says, "Let's visit the White House." So exciting. [Laughs] Run, Spot, run! We used to have Run, Spot, run! Remember when I was, maybe you were much younger, but when I was growing up, we had a book, Run, Spot, run! That was the title of the book, and every sentence was of that complexity.

------
And here's, uh, John Quincy Adams. He was one of the very early presidents right at the beginning, and he swam in what was called the Tiber, Tiber, T-I-B-E-R, Creek, which I don't know if it exists anymore. In fact, I think we're building a beautiful ballroom on top of it based on this picture. The Tiber Creek.
------
But back at the White House, President Richard Nixon enjoyed bowling. He spent a lot of time fighting to stay in office because he had a lot of, a lot of people got him into trouble, and he got himself into trouble, I guess. And then yet President Theodore Roosevelt practiced jujitsu.
----------
And the putting green's right outside. I, I've never used it because I don't want to be seen putting at the White House. I want to be seen working at the White House. And then you have President Herbert Hoover, made up a game called Hoover ball and it, that worked out better for him than the economy because he was the president under which we had the Great Depression.
--------
DONALD TRUMP 00:10:53-00:10:59 (6 SEC)
So here's the book, and they've really done a great job. Publication, White House Historical Association.

So they were supposed to read a book together, but Trump picked a picture book, and never got around to reading any of it, or even saying what the book was called.

But POTUS does like "Spot the dog" books, even though the writing is really complicated.

Honestly, read the transcript. I think he can't read. Or he struggles bigley with it.

Interview: Usha Vance Interviews Donald Trump on Her Literacy Podcast - July 3, 2026 — Trump Archive (trump-archive.com)

What about our great English writers ? Oscar Wilde. George Bernard Shaw, Jonathon Swift ?

Ahh. Re my above post, he did name the book.

And it says, "Let's visit the White House."

I can't find the book online. I think it was maybe a tour guidebook.