The danger is now clear: Trump is destroying democracy in broad daylight

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/04/trump-democracy-voting-process-elected

The danger is now clear: Trump is destroying democracy in broad daylight
Jonathan Freedland

Fri 4 Sep 2020 16.57 BSTLast modified on Fri 4 Sep 2020 20.01 BST

This is not a normal election. I don’t say that because it is now clear that, against some stiff competition, Donald Trump is the most repellent individual ever to have sought, let alone won, the presidency of the United States. The latest proof comes in a quadruple-sourced account of Trump describing US troops who died for their country as “losers” and “suckers”, and demanding that a military parade exclude wounded veterans, lest spectators glimpse an amputee. “Nobody wants to see that,” he said.

There was a time when the Atlantic’s jaw-dropping report, later corroborated “in its entirety” by the Associated Press, would have proved terminal for a politician in a country where respect for the military supposedly has the status of a religious obligation. But that time is long past. It ended in 2015 when Trump branded John McCain – who had spent more than five years in a Hanoi cell as a prisoner of war – a “loser”, though of course now Trump swears blind that he never said any such thing, despite the existence of video showing him saying exactly that.

In a normal election, you’d be running the numbers on the harm this would do to Trump among his avowedly patriotic base. But wiser heads have learned to give up on such calculations. Trump’s supporters will write this off as more fake news, and stick with their man even as he tramples on everything they claim to hold dear. Like he always said, he could shoot people on Fifth Avenue and they’d still vote for him.

Which is why it will similarly make no difference that this week he spouted conspiracist garbage about Joe Biden being controlled by people “in the dark shadows”, or reheated a Facebook-spread fantasy about black-clad looters boarding planes to fly around the country causing trouble – think of it as RiotAir – offering no evidence. Of course that won’t move the needle.

Remember, this is a country where close to 200,000 people are dead thanks to a pandemic that Trump refused to admit was happening, and for which his proposed remedy was self-injected bleach. The US economy lies in tatters, racked by mass unemployment. And yet, despite that record of lethal failure, this inadequate, malignant man still has the support of 42% of the American people.

That fact alone makes this an abnormal election. But that’s not the exceptional circumstance I have in mind. Rather, it is that the critical contest on 3 November is not so much between Democrat and Republican as between democrat and anti-democrat. It is that nothing less than the US’s standing as a democracy is at stake.
(snip)

[randr]

1. Trump is not acting alone

He is joined with very evil individuals but mostly the people who support him. He would be powerless without the masses who have turned their backs on love of country and their fellow Americans.

[TNNurse]

4. He does not have the knowledge of how things work

to do what he does. Stephen Miller and other terrorists are feeding him plans.

He is too stupid to think up some of this horror.

[eShirl]

5. plus all that one-on-one phone mentoring with his hero Vladimir

[llashram]

10. the greedy fascist cabal

in power at the moment, looting our Treasury, openly racist and virulently anti-liberal, McConnel, Graham and I suspect some military in the background, want to remain in power. Trump, especially since his BFF Putin, will, by the recent Russian 'referendum' stay in power until 2036. He and his BFF are in touch frequently I bet and the alpha, Putin, has given trump his marching orders, destroy American capitalism and democracy in favour of whatever matrix the GOP-fascist cabal has come up with.

You are right, we have the most serious threat to our way of life roaming the streets posing as militias and other pro-trump groups and occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

We are fighting for the survival of our democratic way of life.

Civil War II started January 20th 2017. Also President Obama, an African-American, in power duly elected by overwhelming margins scared the shit out of the fascist forces and they are intent on remaining in power to prevent anyone other than a white male running this country.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

2. This has been happening for 3 3/4 years...nt

[DownriverDem]

8. Go back

further.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Let's see those tax returns that reveal the financial backers

Time for total transparency

[2naSalit]

6. ++++++++++++++++!!!

[NoMoreRepugs]

7. When does the American media stand up and say this

EVERY single day??

[Illumination]

9. He needs to resign!!!

[Fritz Walter]

11. Yet another third-rail issue that he ignores

As I mention in a previous post this week, just as threatening to change -- let alone destroy -- Social Security used to mean instant-death to a politician's career, so too was criticizing and insulting members of the Armed Forces and their survivors! Not any more, apparently.



For the life of me, I cannot understand how his supporters (39%!?!) just turn a blind eye to these accounts, dismissing them as fake news, a deep-state conspiracy, or other flat-earther notions. My only neighbor that has a Cowardly Lyin' Traitor campaign yard-sign also has a "Veterans for..." bumper-sticker on his SUV, and that appeared after the Traitor refused to take any action against Putin's bounty on our service members heads in Afghanistan!