2025 Political Thread

How the hell has Stephen Miller not been controlled by anyone (Democrat or Republican)? The guy is straight up deranged.

We are at a crisis. Words don't matter much just now, but I think many Americans are getting back in touch with our common roots in this country and its institutions in the face of what is so obviously wrong, and I don't mean specific troop deployments in specific cities; I mean the man himself and his threats and bullying -- he's either emotionally out of whack/demented or impeachable right now. (Not mutually exclusive.)

He is certainly bringing the country together, but not in any way that he seems to prefer. What's he going to do: read the riot act to each and every one of us?

Never thought I'd be wondering -- as so many citizens of Latin American, Caribbean, African, and Asian countries have sometimes wondered -- does the military back him?

Reuters reported that the room of senior military people was very quiet last week as Trump spoke. What were and are they thinking?

Whatever it is, it will be patriotic, loyal, and brilliant. But what can be done when there's a seeming madman at the controls?

For those of you who aren't as left of center as I am, you probably should read this from Tom Nichols (staunch centrist and often ridiculed for not being as alarmist as he could/should be about certain things): https://www.theatlantic.com/newslet...opy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

This is not normal, and regardless of who may be to blame for getting us here, it still doesn't change the fact that what Trump and co. are doing right now is tantamount to treason and very dangerous.

That's an excellent article, though I don't think that soldiers refusing to obey orders is going to strengthen our national crisis about the rule of law one bit.

It will just weed out the "unreliable" ones, from a hypothetical power player's point of view.

Back in the Vietnam War protest era, I recall how encouraging rumors were that, for example, the 82nd Airborne refused to come in for crowd control. What a young fool I was.

The 82nd and others did their duty (I don't even know if the 82nd was involved, but they and all others who were involved were American soldiers and therefore did their duty). And the country muddled through that mess, just as we will muddle through this one.

We have to look at the bigger picture now, too.

In terms of the present fuss, Biden's administration primed the pump by letting in a record number of illegals.

Scooping them up is now the excuse used for the Executive branch to seize unprecedented power -- power which can will be used in other ways by the next lot of power-crazed players who moves in and, say, wants to nationalize socialism.

Then a reactionary lot may rise, but fairly soon the national will will be broken to the bit and the informal United Socialist States of America (USSA) -- the true endgame here, I suspect -- can get on unhindered with the business of breaking eggs, although no omelet will show up on any prole's plate -- it never has and never will.

Young people quite naturally like the idea of socialism and also of suffering for a noble cause (such as mutiny against illegal orders). They can't yet see the dreadful real-life results.

We're in a civilian crisis now and must get ourselves out of it. If it helps any, my perception of Donald Trump after the Butler PA shooting has changed.

If a bullet had taken him out of the campaign, I probably would have gone all conspiracy theory. With that iconic image before me, I didn't wonder "'fight, fight, fight' who?"

Now I see it. That fist pumping was America punching itself in the face.

And that's just stupid.

Stupidity is dangerous as well as contagious.

....
Parente said it was clear the agents aren’t from Chicago in part because the body camera captured them butchering the street name “Kedzie.”

He said the real danger comes from having trigger-happy agents in fatigues and armed with assault rifles driving around unfamiliar neighborhoods in an unmarked vehicle whose only markings were an Uber logo.

“It’s crazy what’s happening out there,” Parente said. “It’s dangerous, but it’s not Ms. Martinez who is the danger.”


-- Source

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The underlying danger, of course, is hate and that can only be settled on an individual basis, each one of us removing that poison arrow from our own heart. Ain't easy.

That is straight up neo-Nazism.

andyhb said:

For those of you who aren't as left of center as I am, you probably should read this from Tom Nichols (staunch centrist and often ridiculed for not being as alarmist as he could/should be about certain things): https://www.theatlantic.com/newslet...opy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

This is not normal, and regardless of who may be to blame for getting us here, it still doesn't change the fact that what Trump and co. are doing right now is tantamount to treason and very dangerous.

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"The enemy within."

To Trump, the enemy is his own people - more specifically, those who politically disagree with him.

Even back in 2019 when I was more conservative, many Trump supporters (not all of them, but still far too many) didn't even see me as human simply because I'm from California. They cheered on the earthquakes in Ridgecrest. Some of them actually WANTED people to die.

Honestly... how anyone could support Trump at this point... I don't know. It seems like ignorance at best - like how my grandparents were blissfully unaware that the tariff hikes included the end of de minimis because Fox News never fed that tidbit to them - but often times, it's willful ignorance.

I'm not gonna say someone is a bad person because of their political views. If anything, someone's political views shouldn't even be a determining factor - political extremism is, by nature, merely a symptom of a larger problem lurking underneath.

There are those who voted for Trump because they genuinely thought he would improve the situation in this country - ignorance at first, but based on Trump's collapsing approval ratings, a lot of those people are starting to see this president for who he really is. Then there are those who support anything and everything he does simply because he's Trump - that's willful ignorance.

If my family members saw this post, they'd probably say I've become a "flaming liberal" or whatever - for the record, I'm libertarian - it's just that my loyalty is to the Constitution, not the executive branch.

TH2002 said:

"The enemy within."

To Trump, the enemy is his own people - more specifically, those who politically disagree with him.

Even back in 2019 when I was more conservative, many Trump supporters (not all of them, but still far too many) didn't even see me as human simply because I'm from California. They cheered on the earthquakes in Ridgecrest. Some of them actually WANTED people to die.

Honestly... how anyone could support Trump at this point... I don't know. It seems like ignorance at best - like how my grandparents were blissfully unaware that the tariff hikes included the end of de minimis because Fox News never fed that tidbit to them - but often times, it's willful ignorance.

I'm not gonna say someone is a bad person because of their political views. If anything, someone's political views shouldn't even be a determining factor - political extremism is, by nature, merely a symptom of a larger problem lurking underneath.

There are those who voted for Trump because they genuinely thought he would improve the situation in this country - ignorance at first, but based on Trump's collapsing approval ratings, a lot of those people are starting to see this president for who he really is. Then there are those who support anything and everything he does simply because he's Trump - that's willful ignorance.

If my family members saw this post, they'd probably say I've become a "flaming liberal" or whatever - for the record, I'm libertarian - it's just that my loyalty is to the Constitution, not the executive branch.

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This entire quote is completely antithetical to the constitution.

This is beyond insane:



You, too, will be scratching your head trying to ascertain how and why the Sheriff of Perry County imagined some kind of "threat" from posting a couple of absolutely harmless memes.

The Sheriff of Perry County in Tennessee should be bitten by radioactive mosquitoes from the Mariana trench. Wait, should I say that? That blithering idiot might think it is a threat.

Every politician period, not just Democrats.

The DHS secretary was in Chicago today at what sounds like a circus media event...all the usual suspects, from agents waving to the crowd to arrests to guitar-slinging protest singers.

Everything but a shared sense of humanity.

We didn't have such scenes as the school arrest shown above before Trump 2.0.

But we didn't have such demagogues until the decades-long triumph of left-wing politics and the Sixties revolution, with all its attendant physical violence and, much more often, bureaucratic /legislative forms of imposed will.

There's no going back. There is always an open road ahead, though.

"Media is the message" types prefer to blind us to anything but what they want us to see. And the billboard messages conflict just now, whether accidentally or by some design, I don't know -- it's definitely a Sixties-era brand, however.

Forget the Guard -- those already "in action" need to realize that it isn't combat; it is Main Street USA.

They need to unmask and demilitarize, quit LARPing around, and try to restore some dignity and gun-free professionalism to law enforcement.

What the heck ever happened to community policing?

We let them have guns and considerable authority in the first place because we knew that, except in the direst need, they would consider themselves failures if they used those guns and that power.

Nowadays, all they have to do is claim that they felt threatened and they can get away with some ugly stuff. But that doesn't win our respect, far from it.

So hate just piles up on the "them" and "us" sides.

And the Left needs to take some long overdue responsibility for actions that cause reaction.

And maybe the media might want to consider that human beings who watched their job portrayed in such ways as this could well morph into other human beings who could drag a mother out of her car at school and cuff her.

It isn't just social media today. It's the long-term dehumanizing effect of electronic stimulation on our brains.

Fortunately, we're tough, but this is definitely a rough spot now.

Communication and keeping things in perspective are what is needed. If we can just take the Halloween masks off and talk...we might make some progress along that open road.

The Nobel Peace Prize was announced this morning. I'm anxiously awaiting reactions.

Good for Norway!

Meanwhile, on the Hill, it seems to be wakey-wakey time:

...Senate Republicans want to support Trump’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, but they said the president’s actions are raising alarming questions about states’ rights, presidential authority and the precedent of deploying National Guard troops across state lines.

“I worry about someday a Democrat president sending troops or National Guard from New York, California, Oregon, Washington state to North Carolina. I think it’s bad precedent,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said.

“If you look at this particular issue, I don’t see how you can argue that this comports with any sort of conservative view of states’ rights,” he added...

-- Source

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