|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 5, 2024 22:21:46 GMT
Biden delivered a great speech on the threats to democracy. Trump in a bizarre video declared "God made Trump". Straight out of the authoritarian playbook.
|
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 5, 2024 22:23:33 GMT
In comparison, Biden's speech in defense of democracy. www.nytimes.com/live/2024/01/05/us/presidential-primary-iowa-caucusPresident Biden on Friday delivered a ferocious condemnation of Donald J. Trump, his likely 2024 opponent, warning in searing language that the former president had directed an insurrection and would aim to undo the nation’s bedrock democracy if he returns to power.
On the eve of the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Mr. Trump’s supporters, Mr. Biden framed the 2024 election as a choice between a candidate devoted to upholding America’s centuries-old ideals and a chaos agent willing to discard them for his personal benefit.
“There’s no confusion about who Trump is or what he intends to do,” Mr. Biden warned in a speech at a community college not far from Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, where George Washington commanded troops during the Revolutionary War. Exhorting supporters to prepare to vote this fall, he said: “We all know who Donald Trump is. The question is: Who are we?”
In an intensely personal address — at one point Mr. Biden nearly cursed Mr. Trump by name — the president compared his rival to foreign autocrats who rule by fiat and lies. He said Mr. Trump had failed the basic test of American leaders, to trust the people to choose their elected officials and abide by their decisions.
“We must be clear,” Mr. Biden said. “Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot.”
|
|
|
|
Post by peano on Jan 5, 2024 23:32:52 GMT
Biden delivered a great speech on the threats to democracy. Trump in a bizarre video declared "God made Trump". Straight out of the authoritarian playbook. That Meidas Touch video of “God Made Trump” is so bizarre. The narcissism is so strong, he is deifying himself. |
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 5, 2024 23:45:09 GMT
More clips from Biden's speech today
|
|
|
|
Post by mollycoddle on Jan 5, 2024 23:45:24 GMT
A “shepherd.” There aren’t enough eyerolls in the world for his bs.
|
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 5, 2024 23:51:53 GMT
Trump's response to the shooting - get over it. Zero compassion. Trump managed thoughts and prayers before this video clip. His statement we have to get over it, we have to move on a day after a school shooting with dead children negates anything he said before.
|
|
|
|
Post by Scrapper100 on Jan 6, 2024 0:24:42 GMT
Biden delivered a great speech on the threats to democracy. Trump in a bizarre video declared "God made Trump". Straight out of the authoritarian playbook. So I clicked on the last one and found something he posted on his account. And god gave us trump. Seriously cult like stuff here. Seriously scary stuff. Well so was the one that was red. The really scary thing is that I think many would go along with this. He isn’t being called out on the things he says. He keep introducing little nuggets if what he thinks and all the references to nazis is crazy. Vermin and poisoning the blood. Dictator. One religion. I wish people would wake up. Punishing women if they have an abortion snd punishing anyone that goes against him. |
|
|
|
Post by Scrapper100 on Jan 6, 2024 0:30:11 GMT
Trump's response to the shooting - get over it. Zero compassion. Even a&shats like Ted Cruz can manage thoughts and prayers. Totally disgusting. It’s terrible but we will get over it. What a disgusting piece of #%<< what a poor excuse for a human being. I just can’t wrap my head around anyone that has listened to him in the last year especially being a fan. He turns my stomach with his lies. |
|
Gennifer
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,243 
|
Post by Gennifer on Jan 6, 2024 1:07:26 GMT
That Meidas Touch video of “God Made Trump” is so bizarre. The narcissism is so strong, he is deifying himself. For clarity, they didn’t make the video. They just reposted it from his post. |
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 6, 2024 3:24:41 GMT
The irony of this response from the former guy to Biden's speech. He's projecting and talking about himself. He's stuck in the past, he rambles incessantly about the 2020 election, plays victim to all of his indictments and lawsuits, talks about revenge, pardons for J6 criminals and sometimes delivers empty promises. Regrettably, none of his supporters will see it that way. www.nytimes.com/live/2024/01/05/us/presidential-primary-iowa-caucusAt a campaign event in Sioux Center, Iowa, just 10 days before the state’s caucuses, Mr. Trump suggested that Mr. Biden’s democracy-themed speech, aimed at laying out the stakes of the 2024 election, was meant to divert focus away from issues like the economy and the border.
Mr. Biden “cannot talk about a single issue that matters to hardworking Americans because he has failed you and betrayed you,” Mr. Trump said.
“They’ve weaponized government, and he’s saying I’m a threat to democracy,” Mr. Trump said, sounding incredulous. |
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 6, 2024 4:12:36 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by mollycoddle on Jan 6, 2024 10:17:55 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by peano on Jan 6, 2024 13:34:54 GMT
That Meidas Touch video of “God Made Trump” is so bizarre. The narcissism is so strong, he is deifying himself. For clarity, they didn’t make the video. They just reposted it from his post. Oh yep. Sorry Meidas Touch! |
|
|
|
Post by epeanymous on Jan 6, 2024 14:20:30 GMT
I'm in DC for a conference; every time I'm here, I make reservations at the Holocaust museum (and now at the MAAHC as well, which if you haven't been, is really well-done). One of the things that is incredibly striking is to read all of the text in the museum that traces Hitler's rise to power and the steps he took to consolidate power and promote nationalism. Whether or not Trump would do all of the things he says he would do in a second term, he is absolutely and 100% using authoritarian strongman rhetoric and imagery, and all of the language about "enemies" and people who are "un-American" and "polluting" us is straight from that playbook. Unfortunately, it appeals to some people.
|
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 6, 2024 14:52:39 GMT
There are so many terrible things he did as president, it would be challenging to choose the worst. But doing nothing on Jan 6 and watching the violence unfold is certainly in the top 5 worst things he did. heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-5-2024Biden emphasized that while the whole world was watching the attack in horror and disbelief, and even as staff, family members, and Republican leaders pleaded with Trump to do something, the former president watched events unfold on the television in a little room off the Oval Office and “did nothing.”Biden repeated the condemnation of former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) when he called that refusal to act “among the worst derelictions of duty by a president in American history.”/photo/1 |
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 6, 2024 14:57:04 GMT
The choice between a president who incites political violence and one who calls it out for what it is, a threat to democracy, could not be more clear. heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-5-2024Then, when he had exhausted all his legal options, Trump urged his supporters to assault the Capitol. Since then, more than 1,200 people have been charged with crimes related to the events of that day; nearly 900 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted.
Trump has called those insurrectionists “patriots” and has promised to pardon them if he is returned to office. But normalizing violence as part of our political system destroys the reasonable debate and peaceful transition of power that is at the heart of democracy. Biden identified this danger, warning: “Political violence is never, ever acceptable in the United States political system—never, never, never. It has no place in a democracy. None. You can’t be pro-insurrectionist and pro-American.” |
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 6, 2024 15:00:48 GMT
Biden really knocked this speech out of the park. If he can continue to inspire people like this, November will hopefully be a landslide. heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-5-2024“Together, we can keep proving that America is still a country that believes in decency, dignity, honesty, honor, truth,” he said. “We still believe that no one, not even the President, is above the law…. [T]he vast majority of us still believe that everyone deserves a fair shot at making it. We’re still a nation that gives hate no safe harbor…. We still believe in ‘We the People,’ and that includes all of us, not some of us.” |
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 6, 2024 15:21:26 GMT
Trump defines threats as anything that is problematic for him personally and his attempt to return to power. www.nytimes.com/2024/01/06/us/politics/jan-6-trump-biden.htmlClashing Over Jan. 6, Trump and Biden Show Reality Is at Stake in 2024
In dueling sets of speeches, Donald Trump and President Biden are framing the election as a battle for the future of democracy — with Mr. Trump brazenly casting Mr. Biden as the true menace.
Rarely in American politics has a leading presidential candidate made such grave accusations about a rival: warning that he is willing to violate the Constitution. Claiming that he is eager to persecute political rivals. Calling him a dire threat to democracy.
Those arguments have come from President Biden’s speeches, including his forceful address on Friday, as he hammers away at his predecessor. But they are also now being brazenly wielded by Donald J. Trump, the only president to try to overthrow an American election.
Three years after the former president’s supporters stormed the Capitol, Mr. Trump and his campaign are engaged in an audacious attempt to paint Mr. Biden as the true menace to the nation’s foundational underpinnings. Mr. Trump’s strategy aims to upend a world in which he has publicly called for suspending the Constitution, vowed to turn political opponents into legal targets and suggested that the nation’s top military general should be executed.
The result has been a salvo of recriminations from the top candidates in each party, including competing events to mark Saturday’s third anniversary of the attack on the Capitol.
The stakes are especially personal for Mr. Trump given the 91 felony charges against him, many of them stemming from his attempt to cling to power. He often defines threats to democracy as any circumstance that could imperil his path to the presidency, and has assigned blame to Mr. Biden and his allies without evidence. |
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 6, 2024 15:27:08 GMT
More projection & deflection from Trump www.nytimes.com/2024/01/06/us/politics/jan-6-trump-biden.html“They’re willing to violate the U.S. Constitution at levels never seen before in order to win,” Mr. Trump said during a rally last month in New Hampshire. “And remember this: Joe Biden is a threat to democracy — he’s a threat.”
Of course, Mr. Trump has often relied on projection as a political defense mechanism, including a memorable debate moment in 2016 when Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, said President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had praised Mr. Trump because “he would rather have a puppet as president of the United States.”
“No puppet,” Mr. Trump quickly objected. “You’re the puppet.”
“It is classic Trump to try and deflect from his own misconduct,” Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, told reporters before Mr. Biden’s speech on Friday. “The reality is the people of Pennsylvania have shown through multiple cycles, in 2020 and 2022, that they see through that.” |
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 6, 2024 15:36:03 GMT
From the NYT editorial staff www.nytimes.com/2024/01/06/opinion/trump-2024-campaign-warning.html
By now, most American voters should have no illusions about who Mr. Trump is. During his many years as a real estate developer and a television personality, then as president and as a dominant figure in the Republican Party, Mr. Trump demonstrated a character and temperament that render him utterly unfit for high office.
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.
Our purpose at the start of the new year, therefore, is to sound a warning.
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.
It is instructive in the aftermath of that administration to listen to the judgments of some of these officials on the president they served. John Kelly, a chief of staff to Mr. Trump, called him the “most flawed person I’ve ever met,” someone who could not understand why Americans admired those who sacrificed their lives in combat. Bill Barr, who served as attorney general, and Mark Esper, a former defense secretary, both said Mr. Trump repeatedly put his own interests over those of the country. Even the most loyal and conservative of them all, Vice President Mike Pence, who made the stand that helped provoke Mr. Trump and his followers to insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, saw through the man: “On that day, President Trump also demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution,” he said.
…
Re-electing Mr. Trump would present serious dangers to our Republic and to the world. This is a time not to sit out but instead to re-engage. We appeal to Americans to set aside their political differences, grievances and party affiliations and to contemplate — as families, as parishes, as councils and clubs and as individuals — the real magnitude of the choice they will make in November. |
|
RosieKat
Drama Llama
PeaJect #12
Posts: 5,580
|
Post by RosieKat on Jan 6, 2024 17:35:25 GMT
By now, most American voters should have no illusions about who Mr. Trump is. That's the problem, though...there are a lot of people who still want what he's selling. |
|
|
|
Post by revirdsuba99 on Jan 6, 2024 17:49:28 GMT
They have forgotten their bible.
Thou shall not worship false idols (gold ones at that)!!
|
|
|
|
Post by epeanymous on Jan 6, 2024 17:52:55 GMT
By now, most American voters should have no illusions about who Mr. Trump is. That's the problem, though...there are a lot of people who still want what he's selling. I know Adam Serwer was the one with the pithy insight about it, but I really feel like what he is selling is the pleasure of hating people and making them suffer. Distressing to see how many people respond to it. |
|
|
|
Post by papersilly on Jan 7, 2024 4:24:25 GMT
Someone recently said that one candidates is focused on the past and the other is focused on the future. Which one would you prefer?
|
|
|
|
Post by onelasttime on Jan 7, 2024 20:47:27 GMT
Someone recently said that one candidates is focused on the past and the other is focused on the future. Which one would you prefer? I read this earlier and thought that person got it wrong but couldn’t come up with a response. Until I read the comment below. Based on that a more accurate comment would be … Both candidates are looking toward the future. One wants to preserve our democracy. The other wants to be able to “control the people ruthlessly”. “Trump on President Xi: "He controls 1.4 billion people ruthlessly. Ruthlessly. No games, right? They said, 'is President Xi of China a brilliant man?' I said, Yes he is." |
|
|
|
Post by onelasttime on Jan 8, 2024 17:51:48 GMT
trump went on a rant this morning. In it he said he would indict President Biden if he wins re-election. He claims he can do it because President Biden weaponized the DOJ to “come after” his political opponent.
This random tweet summed it up nicely.
”Whether you can indict a former president for the high crime of hurting your feelings is something the Supreme Court will need to decide.”
|
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 8, 2024 21:31:30 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 8, 2024 21:38:42 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 9, 2024 4:27:55 GMT
a couple of great points about Trump. If it holds true that the more he's in the press, the less people like him, maybe the trials will ultimately be a good thing. www.nytimes.com/2024/01/08/opinion/biden-trump.htmlTrump posted to his Truth Social account a word cloud illustrating the terms voters in a survey most often associated with his political goals. In the center, in large, red-orange letters, are “power,” “dictatorship” and, most prominently of all, “revenge.” But Trump’s implicit boast about his authoritarian image was just a blip; by the time I got back online on Dec. 29, it had disappeared from the news cycle, much as the memories of so many other Trumpian outrages against the civic fabric have disappeared. All this forgetting is a result of Trump’s singular talent, which is to transgress at such speed and scale that the human mind can’t keep up.Biden has set himself the task of trying to jolt the country out of its learned helplessness in the face of Trump’s exhausting provocations. This is not, despite the fatalism of people like Romney, a doomed project. Congress’s Jan. 6 hearings demonstrated that a sustained focus on Trump’s wrongdoing can move at least some fraction of the public. Right now, the ex-president benefits from being largely out of the spotlight — his ejection from Twitter has, ironically, been a great boon to him — but t he more Trump is in people’s faces, the less they like him. (That’s why his Covid news conferences were so disastrous for him.) It’s thus incumbent on Biden to try to make people pay attention to a man many of us would rather never think about again. |
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jan 9, 2024 4:44:29 GMT
From Biden's speech in SC today www.c-span.org/video/?532703-1/president-biden-remarks-mother-emanuel-ame-church-charleston-sc“The truth is under assault in America,” said Biden. “As a consequence, so is our freedom, our democracy, our very country, because without the truth, there’s no light. Without light there’s no path from this darkness.”www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/01/08/remarks-by-president-biden-at-a-political-event-charleston-sc/Just two days ago, we marked the third anniversary of the dark — one of the darkest days in American history: January the 6th. The day in which insurrectionists stormed the United States Capitol, trying for the first time in American history to stop the peaceful transfer of power in the country.
We all saw with our own eyes the truth of what happened. That violent mob was whipped up by lies from a defeated former President — smashing windows, smearing blood on statues, ransacking offices. Outside, insurrectionists erected gallows, chanting “Hang Mike Pence.” Inside, they hunted for Nancy Pelosi, chanting “Where’s Nancy?”
We saw something on January 6th we’d never seen before, even during the Civil War. Insurrectionists waving Confederate flags inside the halls of Congress built by enslaved Americans. A mob attacked and called Black officers, Black veterans defending the nation those vile of racist names.
And yet, an extreme movement of America, the MAGA Republicans, led by a defeated President, is trying to steal history now. They tried to steal an election. Now they’re trying to steal history, telling us that violent mob was, and I quote, “a peaceful protest.”
That that insurrection — those insurrectionists were — these are his words — “patriots.” That there was, quote, “a lot of love that day.” In fact, the rest of the nation and the world saw a lot of hate and violence.
For hours, the defeated former President sat in the private dining room off of my — off of the Oval Office and did nothing, nothing, n- — absolutely nothing. His actions were among the worst derelictions of duty by any president in American history. (Applause.) An attempt — an attempt to overturn a free and fair election by force and violence.
Let me say what others cannot. We must reject political violence in America. Always — not sometimes, always. It’s never appropriate.
The violence of January 6th was an extension of an old playbook from the — from the threats and violence and intimidation.
Very few Republicans have the courage to tell the truth about Jan 6 vs Trump. Trump has called those jailed for crimes on Jan 6 "hostages" and promised to pardon them |
|
