He’s not polished. He needs experience. But I liked a lot of what he had to say.
Unfortunately, it’s looking like a Biden – Trump rematch. What a catastrophe.
I don’t want Trump in the White House, but I would vote for a dead dog before I’d vote for Joe Biden. The man is a disaster.
Shocking. Iowan MAGAs didn’t want Apu Trump when they could have the real Trump.
It’s bad enough foreigners are taking over the country, we certainly don’t want them taking over the MAGA.
I’ll vote for the guy that doesn’t want to install a dictator to save democracy. I’m funny that way.
Serious question. In what way was Trump a dictator that Biden has not been? And vice versa.
Well, can’t believe these things even need to be said…
Dictators don’t believe in elections….
On a certain date, Trump sent Pence into the Senate to not-certify the election even though the states themselves had certified the results. Trump organized a mob that became a riot and encouraged them to go to the Capitol.
He petitioned Georgia election officials to “find’ votes.
He sent his lawyers to go to courts and to purposefully present false evidence and testimony.
But, whatever…
So the election issue is the only thing? Okay, good to know.
You say “election”. I say democracy.
Of people in the race … My rank order of choice at the moment is:
doughboy
gi jane (or gi apu)
senile #1 , de sanctimonius — not sure who i favor
hutchinson is not coming back, kennedy is a nut, vivek is orange bozo wannabe vp
satan himself I might vote over orange bozo (senile #2) … I like my country. Because of that would never vote for #2.
If your lawyers go to court and argue that if you kill your political enemies while president, you ought to have immunity… pretty sure that’s a text book version of a dictator.
GOP has gone from “character matters” to “I don’t care if you sleep with a prostitute while your wife is pregnant. And, can I please blow you?”
As to what Republicans in general go for, I don’t know or really care. I’m not a Republican.
There are things that I’m worried about.
1. China.
2. Wokeness (and many things spring from that).
3. Immigration.
4. The economy.
5. Energy policy.
6. Drugs.
I judge presidential candidates on how likely they are to push those things in a way that I would prefer.
DeSantis is my first choice, but it’s pretty obvious he’s not going anywhere.
Trump is not my first, second, or even 3rd choice. But all the “he’s Hitler,” “he’s a dictator” stuff from the left is brainless nonsense that I don’t bother with.
In his own words yesterday (and of course he used all caps):
Of course, don’t say you weren’t warned…
I think we got a good hint when this was stated during a recent hearing in a US federal court….
Judge Pan: “Could a President who ordered Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?”
Trump Attorney:“If he were impeached and convicted first. My answer would be a qualified yes.”
Let me start by saying: I’m not defending Trump. I’m firmly in a pox on both their houses and there’s nothing to choose between two candidates who will both constitute disaster if/when elected/re-elected.
But — it is not as blindingly obvious to me as it appears to be to you, that blustering on social media about an unlimited right to break the law is substantively worse than just going ahead and governing in a lawless way sans the bluster, and then making angry, berating speeches toward those of the American people who object. Biden failing to rant and comport himself outwardly like an idiot when talking about the powers of his office does not make him any less of a dictator when he gives us no reason to believe he actually knows the difference between being a dictator and being POTUS.
Well said.
Accusing the other side of dictatorship is as old as the hills. One must specify which actions are dictatorial. If Biden loses the election of 2024 and acts in a way that is comparable to Trump’s reaction to the election of 2020, a rational person will without the slightest hesitation concede that he is a wanna-be dictator. Biden’s anti-Trump pronouncements in public are not in any way dictatorial. It would in fact be apalling if he simply acted as if Trump was just normal. In that case ratonality would demand that Biden is grotesqely weak and delusional. He did in fact move in that direction for a few years.
Well said!
First example that comes to mind is student loan forgiveness. He has absolutely zero authority to do that, he was TOLD he had absolutely zero authority to do it, and he did it anyway on the hope that he’d get away with it. And even though the court confirmed that he couldn’t do it, he’s STILL trying to get it done.
How is that NOT dictatorial? What is the definition of a dictator that doesn’t include the top government official of a country saying that the government is going to do something and the people and the other branches of government will have to go along with it and expecting it to happen — not as a matter of rhetoric, but as an official act?
So I guess that executive action action as such is dictatorial and therefore one would be hard put to identify a president, Republican or Democrat, as non-dictatorial. The charge in this case is just politics as usual. Each party is constantly whining and whimpering that the executive actions of the other party are dictatorial. In the case of Trump’s reaction to the election of 2020, however, we have an ironclad case of very powerful and indeed criminal inclinations of a wanna-be dictator. There is no way that you can construe his watching the pro-Trump invasion of the Capitol with great delight, for example, as executive action.
Once again, well said.
It’s so very interesting how partisans view this subject. If I get in the “way back machine” I remember LOTS of hoopla and arm-waving when Obama issued executive orders during his first term. It was considered “ruling by fiat” by Republicans. Yet, when Trump did the same thing…crickets from Republicans! The fact is that Trump issued 220 executive orders compared to Obama’s 147 (during his first term). But, to hear Republicans tell it, Obama was the dictator…when their boy did more of what the said they found objectionable! Why am I not surprised?
In other “authoritarian” news, the Republicans rightly point out the limitations of presidential power with Biden’s student loan forgiveness. Yet, very few, if any have anything to say about Trump doing the following:
*Ordered active-duty military forces to the Southwest border to fulfill a political agenda (despite the law barring the use of troops for domestic law enforcement).
*Required Defense Secretary Mark Esper and General Mark Milley to participate in a politically motivated photo-op “stunt” in front of a church in Lafayette Park in DC.
*Threated to use active military to attack protestors (despite the Posse Commitatus law which prohibits the use of the US military for internal law enforcement)
*Diverted money that Congress appropriated for military funds to build the Southern border wall (to fulfill a campaign promise).
I suppose only Democrats can be dictators…cause when Republicans take like action it doesn’t seem to register on the dictator meter. Just sayin’.
The question was whether Biden could be expected to act like a dictator, not whether Trump couldn’t.
Of course Trump could, or at least, you either have to believe he’d do it or that he’s a liar, which doesn’t put him in a very good position either way. But I just gave a clear example of dictatorial behavior by Biden (and no, it’s not just like any other executive order because of the blatant disregard of both the political and legal advice he was given about it and the persistence in doing it even after he was told BY THE COURTS that it was illegal) and apparently the only issue with anything Biden ever has done or might do is whether Trump has done the equivalent or worse. So I guess if Trump really did order an assassination, then it would be no big deal if Biden did, too — in fact, it wouldn’t even count as a thing he’d done.
Bottom line: Biden is willing to act like a dictator.
Amending the first sentence of my second paragraph to include “or both”.
As I said…
In other “authoritarian” news, the Republicans rightly point out the limitations of presidential power with Biden’s student loan forgiveness.
Enough said.
If elected again we don’t know if Trump would be a dictator…only time would confirm that for certain. Unfortunately, if that did occur, it would be too late after he was elected…especially given he uttered these words relative to his intentions:
*Trump mused about circumventing the Constitution, arguing that the election fraud he alleges “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
*“We love this guy,” Trump said of Hannity. “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.’”
*”I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, the entire Biden crime family, and all others involved with the destruction of our elections, borders and our country itself,” (NOTE: the practice under the rule of law is for the US Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor, not a president).
*”If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.'”
Can’t speak for anyone else, but I agree with a quote that says, “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time”. Yet, this isn’t exclusively applied to Trump. If any candidate (Democrat or Republican) spoke this way, it would raise the same concerns.