A Warning About Donald Trump

[MsAmerica]

I don't know how much people here really care about Trump, but I'm sharing a very good editorial from the New York Times. It doesn't contain anything new, but is just very well done. I'm posting an excerpt, with links if you want to read the whole thing.

A Warning About Donald Trump and 2024
This Election Year Is Unlike Any Other
Editorial Board

As president, he wielded power carelessly and often cruelly and put his ego and his personal needs above the interests of his country. Now, as he campaigns again, his worst impulses remain as strong as ever — encouraging violence and lawlessness, exploiting fear and hate for political gain, undermining the rule of law and the Constitution, applauding dictators — and are escalating as he tries to regain power. He plots retribution, intent on eluding the institutional, legal and bureaucratic restraints that put limits on him in his first term...

Mr. Trump does not offer voters anything resembling a normal option of Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, big government or small. He confronts America with a far more fateful choice: between the continuance of the United States as a nation dedicated to “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” and a man who has proudly shown open disdain for the law and the protections and ideals of the Constitution...

Mr. Trump’s four years in the White House did lasting damage to the presidency and to the nation. He deepened existing divisions among Americans, leaving the country dangerously polarized; he so demeaned public discourse that many Americans have become inured to lies, insults and personal attacks at the highest levels of leadership. His contempt for the rule of law raised concerns about the long-term stability of American democracy, and his absence of a moral compass threatened to corrode the ideals of national service...

Mr. Trump has made clear his conviction that only “losers” accept legal, institutional or even constitutional constraints. He has promised vengeance against his political opponents, whom he has called “vermin” and threatened with execution. This is particularly disturbing at a time of heightened concern about political violence, with threats increasing against elected officials of both parties.

He has repeatedly demonstrated a deep disdain for the First Amendment and the basic principles of democracy, chief among them the right to freely express peaceful dissent from those in power without fear of retaliation, and he has made no secret of his readiness to expand the powers of the presidency, including the deployment of the military and the Justice Department, to have his way.

For the whole article:

www.nytimes.com/2024/01/06/opinion/trump-2024-campaign-warning.html

dnyuz.com/2024/01/06/this-election-year-is-unlike-any-other/

The US is the most aggressive, dangerous country in the world. They do nothing but interfere in other countries and have funded a few genocides.

However, they still haven't come anywhere near creating the same sort of havoc as Hitler. It's impossible to know how many died during WW2 but it could be as high as 80m.

Trump alone was nothing on Hitler, he's an isolationist. Obama was far more of a hawk and Biden is pumping billions into Israel's ethnic cleansing project.

The far right is on the rise around the world and Trump is just an example of that trend.

Actually, no, Biden wasn't "incapable." I think it was someone on MN who pointed out that presidents rarely have to make instant decisions, and Biden's overall judgment was sound, and he was surrounded by good advisors.

My personal opinion is that he could have won with a different vice president.

Politics these days is all about the presentation. Look at the flack Starmer is getting because he has no charisma. Personally, I'd rather have someone capable with no charisma, than someone incapable with lots of it. (I am not meaning to suggest that I think Starmer is capable here.)

Biden did a lot of good for the US, but unfortunately, none of that matters if he can't capitalise on it in the moment, and there were many times when he didn't / couldn't.

I don't think it would have made a difference who his vice president was, he came across as a doddery old man too many times in front of the cameras.

I don’t think her trips to Epstein island helped

I disagree. I think it can make a big difference if the vice-president is an alert, smart, articulate, experienced white man ... as opposed to a black woman.

You disagreed with me earlier in the thread that Americans wouldn't vote for a female president, so are you saying that the fact that she's black is the decider?

Harris ran rings around Trump in all the debates I saw.

Sadly, I think being either black or being female is considered undesirable. Obama was elected despite his race, but taking her race and gender together...

Actually, almost anyone could best Trump in a debate. Kamala did great against him. But although it's hard to find any Democrat in the U.S. to admit this, she wasn't a great candidate. Far better than Trump, of course, but still not great.