Date: 2024-10-19 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00018759
The Trump Presidency
The Irish Times publishes devastating rebuke of Trump
THE WORLD HAS LOVED, HATED AND ENVIED THE U.S. NOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE PITY IT
On average the US economy has recovered nicely since the 2008 Great Recession thanks to Obama mainly, and continuing into the Trump era. But in reality the USA is two countries ... (1) there is the top 10% (about 35 million people) who have progressed exceptionally well for this time and (2) the bottom 90% who have simply continued to struggle on, until the Covid-19 crisis which is being catastrophic. Trump was elected because the political elite in both parties have ignored the bottom 90% for a very long time ... certainly for the last 25 years, and maybe as long as 40 years. Trump talked the talk with the help of a number of media-savvy supporters ... but with little substance ... rather like his business history. Sadly, much of the top 10% want to retain the status quo, and will probably continue to support Trump no matter what it does for the country as a whole, and especially bottom 90% rest of the country. There is good reason to pity the USA ... that is the bottom 90% who are the real America. This community of people still have huge potential if there is good political leadership. PeterB #TVM
On average the US economy has recovered nicely since the Great Recession of 2008 mainly thanks to Obama, and then continuing into the Trump era. But in reality the USA is two countries ... (1) there is the top 10% (about 35 million people) who have progressed exceptionally well for several decades and (2) the bottom 90% who have been struggling and losing household wealth since around 1980 and are impacted by the Covid-19 crisis in a catastrophic way. Trump was elected because the political elite in both parties have ignored the bottom 90% for a very long time ... certainly for the last 25 years, and maybe as long as 40 years. Trump talked the talk with the help of a number of media-savvy supporters ... but with very little substance ... rather like his business history. Sadly, much of the top 10% are comfortable retaining the status quo, and will probably continue to support Trump no matter what it does for the country as a whole, and especially the bottom 90% of the country. There is good reason to pity the USA because of its current top leadership ... but the bottom 90% which is the core of real America still has huge potential if there is good political leadership. PeterB #TVM
Peter Burgess
The HOBBLEDEHOY ... I use the best, I use the rest
The Irish Times publishes devastating rebuke of Trump
THE WORLD HAS LOVED, HATED AND ENVIED THE U.S. NOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE PITY IT
By: Fintan O’Toole
Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.
However bad things are for most other rich democracies, it is hard not to feel sorry for Americans. Most of them did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. Yet they are locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from Covid-19, has amplified its lethality. The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful.
Will American prestige ever recover from this shameful episode? The US went into the coronavirus crisis with immense advantages: precious weeks of warning about what was coming, the world’s best concentration of medical and scientific expertise, effectively limitless financial resources, a military complex with stunning logistical capacity and most of the world’s leading technology corporations. Yet it managed to make itself the global epicentre of the pandemic.
As the American writer George Packer puts it in the current edition of the Atlantic, “The United States reacted … like Pakistan or Belarus – like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.”
It is one thing to be powerless in the face of a natural disaster, quite another to watch vast power being squandered in real time – wilfully, malevolently, vindictively. It is one thing for governments to fail (as, in one degree or another, most governments did), quite another to watch a ruler and his supporters actively spread a deadly virus. Trump, his party, and Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News became vectors of the pestilence.
The grotesque spectacle of the president openly inciting people (some of them armed) to take to the streets to oppose the restrictions that save lives is the manifestation of a political death wish. What are supposed to be daily briefings on the crisis,
demonstrative of national unity in the face of a shared challenge, have been used by Trump merely to sow confusion and division. They provide a recurring horror show in which all the neuroses that haunt the American subconscious dance naked on live TV.
If the plague is a test, its ruling political nexus ensured that the US would fail it at a terrible cost in human lives. In the process, the idea of the US as the world’s leading nation – an idea that has shaped the past century – has all but evaporated.
Other than the Trump impersonator Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, who is now looking to the US as the exemplar of anything other than what not to do? How many people in Düsseldorf or Dublin are wishing they lived in Detroit or Dallas?
It is hard to remember now but, even in 2017, when Trump took office, the conventional wisdom in the US was that the Republican Party and the broader framework of US political institutions would prevent him from doing too much damage. This was always a delusion, but the pandemic has exposed it in the most savage ways.
Abject surrender
What used to be called mainstream conservatism has not absorbed Trump – he has absorbed it. Almost the entire right-wing half of American politics has surrendered abjectly to him. It has sacrificed on the altar of wanton stupidity the most basic ideas of responsibility, care and even safety. Thus, even at the very end of March, 15 Republican governors had failed to order people to stay at home or to close non-essential businesses. In Alabama, for example, it was not until April 3 that governor Kay Ivey finally issued a stay-at-home order. In Florida, the state with the highest concentration of elderly people with underlying conditions, governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump mini-me, kept the beach resorts open to students travelling from all over the US for spring break parties. Even on April 1, when he issued restrictions, DeSantis exempted religious services and “recreational activities.”
Georgia governor Brian Kemp, when he finally issued a stay-at-home order on April 1, explained: “We didn’t know that [the virus can be spread by people without symptoms] until the last 24 hours.”
This is not mere ignorance – it is deliberate and homicidal stupidity. There is, as the demonstrations this week in US cities have shown, plenty of political mileage in denying the reality of the pandemic. It is fuelled by Fox News and far-right internet sites, and it reaps for these politicians millions of dollars in donations, mostly (in an ugly irony) from older people who are most vulnerable to the coronavirus.
It draws on a concoction of conspiracy theories, hatred of science, paranoia about the “deep state” and religious providentialism (God will protect the good folks) that is now very deeply infused in the mindset of the American right.
Trump embodies and enacts this mindset, but he did not invent it. The US response to the coronavirus crisis has been paralysed by a contradiction that the Republicans have inserted into the heart of US democracy. On the one hand, they want to control all the levers of governmental power. On the other they have created a popular base by playing on the notion that government is innately evil and must not be trusted.
The contradiction was made manifest in two of Trump’s statements on the pandemic: on the one hand that he has “total authority”, and on the other that “I don’t take responsibility at all”. Caught between authoritarian and anarchic impulses, he is incapable of coherence.
Fertile ground
But this is not just Donald Trump. The crisis has shown definitively that Trump’s presidency is not an aberration. It has grown on soil long prepared to receive it. The monstrous blossoming of misrule has structure and purpose and strategy behind it.
There are very powerful interests who demand “freedom” in order to do as they like with the environment, society and the economy. They have infused a very large part of American culture with the belief that “freedom” is literally more important than life. My freedom to own assault weapons trumps your right not to get shot at school. Now, my freedom to go to the barber (“I Need a Haircut” read one banner this week in St. Paul, Minnesota) trumps your need to avoid infection.
Usually when this kind of outlandish idiocy is displaying itself, there is the comforting thought that, if things were really serious, it would all stop. People would sober up. Instead, a large part of the US has hit the bottle even harder.
And the president, his party and their media allies keep supplying the drinks. There has been no moment of truth, no shock of realisation that the antics have to end. No one of any substance on the US right has stepped in to say: get a grip, people are dying here.
That is the mark of how deep the trouble is for the US – it is not just that Trump has treated the crisis merely as a way to feed tribal hatreds but that this behaviour has become normalised. When the freak show is live on TV every evening, and the star is boasting about his ratings, it is not really a freak show any more. For a very large and solid bloc of Americans, it is reality.
And this will get worse before it gets better. Trump has at least eight more months in power. In his inaugural address in 2017, he evoked “American carnage” and promised to make it stop. But now that the real carnage has arrived, he is revelling in it. He is in his element.
As things get worse, he will pump more hatred and falsehood, more death-wish defiance of reason and decency, into the groundwater. If a new administration succeeds him in 2021, it will have to clean up the toxic dump he leaves behind. If he is re-elected, toxicity will have become the lifeblood of American politics.
Either way, it will be a long time before the rest of the world can imagine America being great again.
End.
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POSTED IN UNCATEGORIZED COVID-19FINTAN O'TOOLEMALIGNANT NARCISSISTTHE IRISH TIMESTRUMP CRIME FAMILY Post navigation < PREVIOUS Laura Marling Live on KEXP “at Home” Concert NEXT > WATCH: Dublin residents team up to perform iconic 90s dance routine from Derry Girls 50 thoughts on “The Irish Times publishes devastating rebuke of Trump” Ted APRIL 27, 2020 AT 8:15 PM Get that asshole out NOW! Loading... Reply Jan Bontje APRIL 28, 2020 AT 11:49 AM Trump must be locked up forever! He’a moron and a danger to the whole world. Loading... Reply Terry R. Sandy APRIL 28, 2020 AT 1:17 PM Mr. O’Toole knows not about what he speaks ! Absolute out of touch dribble that we in the states get from our Liberal media daily. After years (decades) of US decline, Trump has revitalized America while at the same time being mis-characterized as a racist, misogynist, xenophobe, etc. Finally we have a president who is looking out for our Country first. Finally we have a president that doesn’t worry about which way the political winds are blowing when he promotes less government regulation, lower taxes to move our economy to the best performance in 5 decades. Finally we have a president who understands how economics works and how and why the Free Enterprise system is the greatest model in the world. Finally, we have a president that is not afraid of the rabid, irrational press OR the Political Establishment in America. Turn off CNN and turn on your mind! Loading... Reply Adam C Morgan APRIL 28, 2020 AT 3:02 PM You should probably take a gander at Treasury stats by year and notice that Trump did not cause some actual economic boom. Economic growth has stayed flat as a function of time since the Obama recovery from the Bush recession in ’07. What Trump did was artificially juice up the stock market (which is not the same thing as the economy). He touts stock growth as a strong economy (it isn’t). The stock market is reactionary and very fickle. Businesses flush with cash from high stocks and buybacks from tax cuts went on hiring sprees that were unsupported by actual economic growth or consumer spending expansion. It was a bubble. No different than the housing bubble, or the dotcom bubble. It was always going to crash and take everyone down with it. He was just hoping to ride it to re-election because far too many people haven’t got a clue how the economy actually works. Loading... Terry R. Sandy APRIL 28, 2020 AT 3:45 PM I see. you are from the “Figures don’t lie but liars can figure” crowd. i do agree that our debt is out of control and it is the fault of our Congress (both Republican and Democrat) which doesn’t care about leaving debt to our children. However, Obama did nothing except throw money at some unions in the guise of Shovel Ready jobs … please. Trump triggered our economy by enacting sound policy. He put it back on solid ground and incredible job growth until COVID-19. The fact the we have by design a capitalist economy is what saved Obama, even though he was clueless on how to get it going. Anemic 1 to 2% growth under Obama. President Trump may offend many with his blunt language and caustic assessment of our biased liberal press, but he has generated solid economic and social policy ( sorry to the pro-aborts ) As for U.S. stock market, i am not worried, it is coming back as well as my retirement accounts. thank you. Loading... Massey456 APRIL 28, 2020 AT 4:48 PM This is the type of people who support Donald Trump. The writer of this article started out with the fact that the majority of the people didn’t vote for him. But over here they will muddy that fact by saying people voted illegally for Clinton and the only voter fraud found was committed by the Republicans. You did not write anything that was opinion or not supported by fact but they will claim you are deep state. People with any piece of sense can see the ball was dropped by our number of cases and our death toll compared to the rest of the world. Loading... Shaun APRIL 28, 2020 AT 6:32 PM I believe that your mind has been subdued by the malignant cult that is trump followers… Everything in the above article and in the mainstream news about this imbecile you have, in your blind hatreds for anyone nonwhite, is true. Only fox news, the voice of the billionaire class, supports this raging fool. Believe me, as a non American.. This fool is hated by all but the dregs of our society. Loading... A. V. MD APRIL 28, 2020 AT 7:36 PM A fantastic economy (if we make abstraction of the subsidy by national debt); nation empowerment (if we see beyond the destruction of the modicum of social safety net); the best time in the nation’s history ( if we don’t count the period of the corona virus being a “democratic hoax” subsequently killing 80k Americans and their economy). Finally a leader who knows how to lead a country as his own business: leaving it bankrupt after his 4yrs time as a CEO And PRESIDENT, being empowered by the Republican Party and a minority of the electorate who, democratically, were indeed represented by a majority of the electoral college. A dark time closing the American Century…. Loading... David Not Ignorant APRIL 28, 2020 AT 7:55 PM Terry, wake up. The orange cheetah is more certainly to blame for deaths. Your kind are also to blame for ignoring science and facts. Facts are facts, you can’t spin those around. Have some bleach on hand in case you catch the virus! Loading... Frederick T. Williams APRIL 28, 2020 AT 10:26 PM For others on this thread, please realize that “Terry R. Sandy” does not represent the majority viewpoint in the U.S. This person represents the insanity, sheer ignorance, fear, and hatred that got Trump elected (barely) by the Electoral College, against the wishes of the majority of American people. And even larger majority of us hates him more than any other living human being right now, but we feel powerless, because our 18th century constitution is being cynically manipulated by amoral, power-obsessed hypocrites like Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Republican Party to retain power for a the minority of us besotted by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and the rest of the right-wing propaganda network. This article speaks the TRUTH. Terry R. Sandy simply regurgitates the lies he has ingested from the propaganda network I referred to. It is indeed a pitiful state of affairs. Loading... Mark Constantine APRIL 29, 2020 AT 12:39 AM Why does everyone assume people outside of the US receive their news from CNN? CNN versus Fox is an Americanism. The rest of the world gets their news from the world news, much of it from conservative sources. I often read in American news that the economy is going swimmingly, everyone is at work, things are great. Yeah. That’s good, but at the same time the people are about as miserable and vitriolic as has ever been the case and despite Americans wanting about 95% the same things in life, they blame the other side(democrats and Republicans both guilty of this) of ruining the country or of actively seeking to destroy it. Trump is firmly in that catagory and deserves to be ridiculed for it. Loading... Duncan APRIL 29, 2020 AT 3:09 AM Terry, you are a fucking moron of the highest degree! You are the cult of trumptard poster child, and your days are numbered. November is coming, then its BYEDON2020!!! Loading... Kapa APRIL 29, 2020 AT 4:31 AM Finally you have a President who doesn’t listen to logic, scientists or professionals. USA is #1 ….. in pandemic deaths and infections. Way to go !! Loading... JP APRIL 29, 2020 AT 7:40 AM Terry R Sandy complains of anaemic GDP growth under Obama, and incredible job growth under Trump. But a quick look at very easily accessed public information from the Federal Reserve and the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that GDP growth was higher on average in Obama’s second term (reaching 4% in 2015) than it has been under Trump, and also shows annual job growth in Obama’s second term in excess of what it has been under Trump. Same goes for pretty much every economic indicator. Trump’s supposed “economic miracle” is a con job, just like Trump’s supposed business success is a con job (he’s just an over-leveraged money launderer). If there’s one skill trump has, it’s the art of the con, but as much as there are some easy marks out there like Terry R Sandy, most people with functioning BS detectors can smell his schtick a mile away. Loading... Eric APRIL 29, 2020 AT 1:35 PM Best economy in decades? When did you write this comment? January? Loading... Henri Rahmon APRIL 28, 2020 AT 7:59 PM I am in favor of TRUMP as the President of the United States. I can’t think of anyone, that can deal with the stresses he has endured SINCE DAY1! You have the Democrats trying to go against every effort he is involved in. They are looking for votes at no cost to the economy, society or the American future. Trump has more experience in running a business, which is very much like running a country in a macro sense. He is by far, the most talented when it comes to negotiations than any other Presidential candidate or elected President. We need him to bring back America into prominence it currently lacks. Anyone opposing this mans effort, has definitely not been in a position of authority. Trump is a strong leader that is getting many things done, and this is the essence of the hate that’s created by the media, and those who dint appreciate a great leader. Trump will be re-elected in 2020, and the economic and political forecast will be affected in the beginning, but long term, he will steer this country back into prominence! Lastly, I salute this man for his endurance. I wish we can all be that way! Loading... Reply JP APRIL 29, 2020 AT 9:02 AM Yet another Trumpist who brags of Trump getting so much done, without mentioning any actual achievements. There’s a reason for that. and that’s that he’s achieved very, very little. The economy has continued the upward trajectory set under Obama, with slightly lower growth in stock prices, GDP and employment, but in the same ballpark. Other than that Trump has damaged America’s standing in the world; undermined America’s institutions, especially the judiciary, by replacing competent, independent people in government with unqualified bootlickers and donors; massively increased levels of corruption, and decreased levels of oversight; and trashed the budget by giving an unfunded tax cut to those who need it least. In the process, he’s wiped his ass with the Constitution, and the consitutionalists of the GOP have meekly accepted that as a price of getting their preferred nominees for judgeships. Trump doesn’t have endurance, or vision. His only enthusiasm is to use his power to punish those who point out that the Emperor is naked. Loading... TR (@TwinRuler) APRIL 27, 2020 AT 8:26 PM You don’t know what in the world you’re talking about. Loading... Reply John Cardani-Trollinger APRIL 28, 2020 AT 12:26 PM Actually – he nailed it. Loading... Reply Leon APRIL 29, 2020 AT 2:59 AM No he missed by a mile, and you too. Loading... Sherry APRIL 27, 2020 AT 8:34 PM This is spot-on. Trump is an outgrowth of accumulated stupidity and greed. I’m watching the collapse of an experiment in capitalism and representative democracy that has lasted less than 250 years. Pity, laugh, satirize, whatever–just keep it coming. All the world should keep voicing its utter contempt for Donald Trump and everyone who stands with him. (But people in Dublin might really like Seattle.) Loading... Reply Richard APRIL 27, 2020 AT 9:10 PM What a bunch of drivel.. Loading... Reply John Cardani-Trollinger APRIL 28, 2020 AT 12:27 PM Actually, he is spot on. Loading... Reply Art taylor APRIL 27, 2020 AT 9:48 PM Who cares what they think. Where do they get to talk about my country! Donald Trump did more got my country than 10 pass presindent s. Look in your own back yards! Who sold out to the English for years? I bet you still don’t know how bad you smell you rat bastards. Let me know how good your government is? I’m Irish and my family left Ireland because of how well you treated the people! So Irish news eat shit and die! 4 more year’s and you can’t stop it with your so-called news Fuc. You all Loading... Reply ryan davies APRIL 28, 2020 AT 3:33 PM Stfu Art Taylor, signed America Loading... Reply Duncan APRIL 29, 2020 AT 3:17 AM Art, being ignorant is not a good luck. You are ignorant. Brainwashed. A sheep of the cult of trumptard. You have been had by a moronic conman, and now you just cant bring yourself to admit. I know it must hurt. No one likes to admit they have been conned. That they where stupid. It will all be over soon for the whole WT lot of you. You can go back into your trailer. BYEDON2020!! You are welcome Loading... Reply Tim Heffernan APRIL 27, 2020 AT 10:00 PM This is absolutely the finest characterization of Trump and the United States at this point in time I have read anywhere, As a US citizen and a scientist I have found the degradation of my country enlightening in the most frightful way imaginable. Loading... Reply Mariko APRIL 29, 2020 AT 7:15 AM I feel the same way! Loading... Reply Sam APRIL 27, 2020 AT 10:53 PM Ireland 5Mil population 1400 deaths corona US 300Mil population 55000 deaths corona Did Trump cause lrelands rate to equal or be greater than the US Pure blarney Loading... Reply Al APRIL 27, 2020 AT 11:28 PM I say focus on getting those 6 counties up north back from the English that my grandfather busted his ass and shed his blood to keep.. Pity us for 911 when we watched our friends incinerate. This isn’t a surprise. We’re all destroying everything not just merica. Loading... Reply Michael,Miami APRIL 27, 2020 AT 11:38 PM Most of us walk around dreading another 4 years of Trump.For those of us that don’t pray,I will make one exception,I pray Trump is defeated in November so that we can MakeAmerica Great Again Loading... Reply Paul APRIL 28, 2020 AT 1:06 AM This is a devastating and really written piece by the always brilliant Fintan O Toole. Loading... Reply Adam C Morgan APRIL 28, 2020 AT 1:39 AM It is deeply shaming just how accurate this is. My heart hurts for my country and what we have become. I have no illusions about America. We have made some monumental mistakes on the world stage. We likely will again. We’re human. We’ve been blessed with much for a long time and people here got complacent, assuming that the mere “greatness” would protect itself. People with plans and patience crept in and directed that apathy toward fear that they could easily manipulate and bam. Here we are. This is a living nightmare for so many of us. It has been eye opening about how much had been swept under the rug instead of actually taken care of. We knew there were issues but we didn’t ever think they were so many or that they ran so deep. We have the political fight of our lives ahead of us and unfortunately the greatest weapon at our disposal seems in short supply. Compassion. Both sides get further divided and heated and play on fears. It’s a real proper mess here and no mistake. Loading... Reply granolaho APRIL 28, 2020 AT 2:54 AM Coming from the side of the pond where Trump lives, I see what this piece points out, day after day. I have never seen such a mentally ill dullard as he is, in my lifetime. I’ve lived a long time, through many presidents. The saddest part was having to open my eyes as to just how impotent the rest of the government has been in trying to get out this obviously unqualified monster who squats in the White House. There is no defense for this moron. None. His base has limited vision and there’s no changing them. Everyday is worse and worse. Now, apparently we wait for elections. I’m going to go grab some whiskey and Clorox chaser now. Loading... Reply Timota APRIL 28, 2020 AT 3:43 AM Thank you Mr. President forgetting us out of a situation that nobody in America or around the world had any control over your proveing again your leadership even with the obstacles as pelosi and her crew👌👌 Loading... Reply Adam C Morgan APRIL 28, 2020 AT 3:05 PM What situation did he get us out of that no one had control over? The virus? Because literally everyone else in the world not only flattened their curves but reversed them. Our cases are still going up. And accelerating. So no… he didn’t get us out of it. He has also given confused messaging, zero solid advice. The ones that got us out of this were the CDC, frontline Doctors and nurses, and State governors who shut things down to stop the unchecked spread while Trump refused to take responsibility. You also do realize that The House and The Senate are Constitutionally bound to act as obstacles to a President, right? Loading... Reply Dougal APRIL 28, 2020 AT 5:25 AM That’s rich commentary coming from a country where people killed and bombed and tortured each other for years over what …religion? While the leaders only egged them on. Loading... Reply Joan Sutton APRIL 28, 2020 AT 5:32 AM Fertile ground indeed. Just remember the real foundation of the great United States of America – an economy firmly planted on the backs of slaves. A majority of those who signed the Constitution were slavers. Washington and Jefferson, those pillars of freedom and equality, were lifelong slavers. There’s reality for you. After the Civil War, African Americans have continued to suffer greatly; they have been treated unfairly on many levels and this continues in some form. This crime with no name, (perhaps best described as extreme racism) has effectively cursed the United States and has affected all levels of society. So no wonder the monstrous trump has emerged. It’s only a logical outcome. Loading... Reply Riccardo Capachilli APRIL 28, 2020 AT 9:59 AM TRUMP is the most Dangerous Man in America today. Loading... Reply Max APRIL 28, 2020 AT 11:05 AM I was born and raised in the US, and, unfortunately, i dwell here now. Trump is exactly the kind of Citizen Capet or Nicholas Romanov figure that a social order belches up as its figurehead before it collapses in a mass revolutionary upheaval. I’m surprised that major nationwide anti-Trump riots haven’t taken place yet. Maybe this will take place when the Covid 19 social distancing measures are relaxed or collapse; the Trump-chumps demanding this may regret having done so when the accelerating irredeemable qualities of what passes for life in the United States finally explode and consume them and their repugnant social order. Loading... Reply Nuall Ó Briain APRIL 28, 2020 AT 11:23 AM This is too much personality politics. The current President of the Electoral College merely makes visible to privileged US Americans the toxicity that is well known to Natives and to most of the rest of the world. The genocidal toxicity of Washington when he ordered: “Lay waste all the settlements around.” The white supremacist toxicity that annexed Hawai’i. The misogynistic, kleptocratic toxicity of a long series of presidents who have supported the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The aggressive militaristic toxicity of Bush and Clinton in destroying Iraq’s drinking-water treatment systems. The racist neocolonial toxicity of Obama and Clinton in destroying Libya and provoking civil war in Yemen. I’ve never met anybody who hated the US. We only wish the people of the US every success in finding a new path to peaceful, respectful relations with your own oppressed peoples and with the other peoples of the world. This is unlikely to be achieved merely by replacing the man in the White House. It probably requires a new constitution. Best of luck! Loading... Reply Terry APRIL 28, 2020 AT 3:10 PM Isn’t it interesting, Niall, that when nations are in need the USA is first to respond with assistance? Loading... Reply James Gouldsmith APRIL 29, 2020 AT 2:03 AM Get the fuck outta here with your ‘Clinton this and that’ bullshit in a surgical feconsyruction of what’s wrong with the entirety of Conservatism. You’re not making a point, you’re just making an embarrassment of yourself. Loading... Reply Cindy APRIL 28, 2020 AT 12:04 PM I live in California and thank God I’m in a state with sense. Thank you for this keen insight and truthful assessment. I can’t sleep at night worrying how this manic will kill more and more Americans. Please pray for us. Loading... Reply Terry R. Sandy APRIL 28, 2020 AT 1:35 PM noticed my earlier reply to your nonsense was not published. Loading... Reply Tammy Stacy APRIL 28, 2020 AT 3:26 PM Can someone tell me how to get out? I never thought I would want to leave the country I was born in. But I sure wouldn’t mind having a leader who actually knew what it meant to lead. Loading... Reply Emilie APRIL 28, 2020 AT 4:31 PM It’s nice to know that some people are aware of how terrified and powerless we feel. Not only has he been destroying our country, endangering our citizens, and denying legal, tax-paying immigrants the stimulus, he’s been destroying our international relations for years. Despite so many broken precedents of behavior and historic scandals, he is still, for some reason, in office. And every day, he says or does something that proves I can, indeed, be more mortified than the day before. It is a sad example of hubris and negligence, on our part, as voters. This is what happens when we do not pay attention. This is what happens when we do not take our democracy seriously. This is what happens when we underestimate the harm one very broken man can do. I hope I’m lucky enough to live through this. And I hope I’m lucky enough to die an ex-patriot on the shores of another country that values healthy, happy, and equal qualities of life over the bottom line. Loading... Reply Tariq Andrea APRIL 28, 2020 AT 7:24 PM On the bright side, and this is reall cruel, those who follow Trump’s edicts (eat hydroxychloroquine, shoot up bleach or whatever toilet disinfectant you happen to have, etc.) will die. And those who refuse to isolate, have a much higher risk of dying. I say, good. Loading... Reply Maggie APRIL 28, 2020 AT 9:52 PM As Americans who actually love our country and hate what Trump has and is doing to it, we can only hope that most of the rest of the world realizes that short of civil war, we have no control over this narcissistic man-child because he controls the Senate (they are all firmly affixed to his posterior) and many of the courts. Many of his base are easily prone to violence and can be easily provoked. We worry that Trump will manipulate them into riots if he loses the election. So as you can see, it’s quite a hot mess we have in America, thanks to Donald Jim Jones Trump. He is probably the greatest conman that ever lived. And his base are his marks. Loading... Reply Duncan APRIL 29, 2020 AT 3:36 AM The man stood in in front of the ENTIRE WORLD and pontificated the virtues of injecting disinfectants into the human body. How perhaps the lungs can go for a good lysol cleaning. He is a moron. And ALL of you who still support him are complicit, cultists. And morons. As for the short sighted argument regarding the economy, it was achieved much like his short term business successes. The planless plan is one of scorched earth, short term, instant gratification thinking. And they ALL crashed and burned to the tune of 5 BANKRUPTCIES. You have witnessed an economy built with no foundation, zero. It was all magical speculation, mostly the result of treasonous actions to cull oversight, with an absolute blind eye to the planet’s wellbeing, or anyone who lives on it. But its almost over. The curtain has been pulled back, and the great and powerful Oz is on full display.. a carpetbagger and conman. A total loser. A pathetic excuse for a man. Vote.. no matter what, vote… BYEDON2020 Loading... Reply Peter Burgess APRIL 29, 2020 AT 9:21 PM YOUR COMMENT IS AWAITING MODERATION. On average the US economy has recovered nicely since the 2008 Great Recession thanks to Obama mainly, and continuing into the Trump era. But in reality the USA is two countries … (1) there is the top 10% (about 35 million people) who have progressed exceptionally well for this time and (2) the bottom 90% who have simply continued to struggle on, until the Covid-19 crisis which is being catastrophic. Trump was elected because the political elite in both parties have ignored the bottom 90% for a very long time … certainly for the last 25 years, and maybe as long as 40 years. Trump talked the talk with the help of a number of media-savvy supporters … but with little substance … rather like his business history. Sadly, much of the top 10% want to retain the status quo, and will probably continue to support Trump no matter what it does for the country as a whole, and especially the bottom 90% rest of the country. There is good reason to pity the USA … that is the bottom 90% who are the real America. This community of people still have huge potential if there is good political leadership. PeterB #TVM Loading... 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