All Things Trump: Is it over yet?

[Scot Dutchy]

Is Trump a fascist?


If Trump looks like a fascist and acts like a fascist, then maybe he is one

The F-word is one we are rightly wary of using, but how else to describe the disgraced president?

Assurances that “fascism couldn’t happen here” are always appealing in Anglo-Saxon countries that think themselves immune because “it” never did. The US and UK did not experience rule by Nazism or communism in the 20th century and the ignorance our lucky histories fostered has weakened our defences in the 21st.

Even after all that has happened in Washington, apparently serious voices insist we cannot compare Donald Trump to any variety of fascist. Conservatives habitually say that liberals call everything they don’t like fascist, forgetting that the moral of Aesop’s fable was that the boy who cried wolf was right in the end. They used to chortle about “Trump derangement syndrome” that spreads in stages like cancer until sufferers “cannot distinguish fantasy from reality”. They have bitten their tongues now that the reality of Trumpism is deranged mobs trying to overthrow democracy.

Their silence was broken last week by the historian of Nazism, Richard Evans, who with the effortless ability to miss every point a professorship at Cambridge bestows, decided now was the moment to denounce his colleagues, Timothy Snyder and Sarah Churchwell. They might compare the Trump and fascist movements but “few who have described Trump as a fascist can be called real experts in the field”, he wrote in the New Statesman with an audible sniff. “Genuine specialists”, such as, and since you asked, himself, “agree that whatever else he is, Trump is not a fascist”.

Before we get to why the argument matters, I should say the New Statesman needs to expand its fact-checking department. Snyder, whose work on how democracies turn into dictatorships is essential reading, does not say that the Trump movement is “fascist”. He writes that “post-truth is pre-fascism and Trump has been our post-truth president”. Churchwell’s astonishing studies of how German Nazis and American white supremacists fed off each other are a revelation. (And I come from the old left and thought I had learned about everything that was rotten with America at my mother’s knee.) When asked, she says she too is careful and characterises the Trump movement as “neo-fascist”.

The use of “fascism” in political debate is both a call to arms and a declaration of war. For once you say you are fighting fascism there can be no retreat. By talking of “pre-fascism” or “neo-fascism”, you acknowledge that the F-word is not a bomb you should detonate lightly; you also acknowledge the gravity of the times.

[Tero]

Trump fence leaking:

You can also go through. John Kurc started using drones to photograph and video the construction of the wall. The last time he was in the border town of Sonoyta, Mexico, he saw two young men with “yellow, handheld angle grinders” cutting through the wall while a lookout with a radio watched for Border Patrol. “They would put the section back with a special bonding agent and then use paint that oxidizes the same colour as the bollards,” says Kurc. “Then they just go in and out.”


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... rumps-wall

[Tero]

Trade failure

Trump cast himself as a businessman-turned-politician that would not allow the US to be taken advantage of by the rest of the world. That nationalist mindset manifested itself in several ways, but especially on trade -- impacting the cost of goods from around the world and altering the US labor market.

Trump exited the Trans-Pacific Partnership during his first month in office. His administration waged a steel and aluminum tariff war against key US trading partners, causing prices of many products made with the metals to rise. His administration also threatened to issue and, sometimes, followed through with tariffs against a range of European products -- including cars, cheese, wine and whiskey.
His administration renegotiated the NAFTA agreement with Canada and Mexico, renaming it USMCA. The administration also struck a trade agreement with China, but after phase one of the deal was agreed upon earlier this year, relations with China were put on ice, largely due to fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

The reasoning behind much of Trump's trade moves, he and his allies asserted, was to bring back jobs from overseas. But tacking on tariffs, relaxing economic regulations and lowering taxes could have a limited effect on the repatriation of job opportunities for Americans lost to cheaper labor abroad, and foreign direct investment in the US declined significantly during the first two years of Trump's tenure.
Trump's tariffs ultimately levied $80 billion of new taxes on Americans.

The President seemed to acknowledge that his trade war hurt farmers, and that to offset their struggles, he celebrated the implementation of subsidizing tactics that ran counter to the anti-socialist principles he said he believes in.

The pandemic set off new crises for the industry, including damage to supply chains. Farm bankruptcies before and during the pandemic soared.
Despite Trump's efforts to repatriate US companies' production to the US, American auto plants closed. And in 2020, major US car companies shifted into survival mode because new car sales entered a steep decline and production halted.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/17/politics ... index.html

[Tero]

They forgot Russia. And China.

FAC871F2-98FA-462A-A6F2-4DB7CA0F5C6A.jpeg (57.52 KiB) Viewed 952 times

NBC

[Tero]

New term for Florida

Never going there again other than possibly once to Orlando with future grand kids.

[Tero]

J. Hogan Gidley tweets
@JHoganGidley
Statement On President Trump’s Impeachment Defense Team:

President Trump has not yet made a determination as to which lawyer or law firm will represent him for the disgraceful attack on our Constitution and democracy, known as the “impeachment hoax.” We will keep you informed.

[Tero]

Trump buried in ridicule for seeking $2 billion for his presidential library

Late Saturday the Washington Post reported that Donald Trump has been telling donors that he is seeking $2 billion to build his presidential library after he leaves office on Wednesday.

The report notes, "The president has told supporters he wants to raise $2 billion for the library — a far greater sum than has been raised for past presidential libraries — and thinks he can collect it in small-dollar donations from his grass-roots supporters."

Needless to say, critics were both stunned at the amount and found the idea of a Trump Presidential Library -- reportedly to be built in Florida, --hilarious and they were quick to mock the president who is notable for refusal to read even simple memos while he was in office.

Raw story

[JimC]

It could have a collection of picture books and colour-by-the-numbers books!

[Tero]

There is a recorded opinion by Trump on pretty much everything. On Twitter. Researchers could request them from Twitter.
But you can read them all here. You would need to put them in keyword searchable files.
http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com/

[Tero]

Trump allies collecting cash to introduce pardons to Trump:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/01/17/poli ... ssion=true

[Animavore]

2?

[Tero]

2 minute video would explain all you need to know about impeachment. They could vote after that:
https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1 ... 2299580418

[Tero]

More accurate Tweet archive up to Jan 8th
https://www.thetrumparchive.com/

[Tero]

The Rodney Dangerfield days of Trump: no respect.

[Tero]