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4thgenheel said:
rouser lies like he breathes.

absolutely no one thought romney or dubya were existential threats or attempting to orbanize the country. there were disagreements on policy and ideals, of course. but we were not careening toward fascism like we are under maga rule.

this is all very new and frightening and uncharted territory.
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I will say that his taking Trump as a joke and entertainment (bread and circuses) is typical of most Trump supporters I know. They regard politics as entertainment and can't imagine why liberals take it so seriously. And of course the reason is because they can afford to not take it seriously as they're not one of the groups - transgenders and the LGBTQ community generally, teachers and professors and others who work in education, immigrants (including legal ones, like the Haitians in Ohio during the campaign) - that have been targeted by Trump and MAGA Nation for harassment and threats and persecution. It's easy to regard Trump as "fun" and entertaining when you're not in the line of fire. If a Democrat were doing and saying the things about white Republicans that Trump has said about liberals and allied groups then there is little doubt that most Trumpers on here would be screaming bloody murder and expressing indignant outrage on a daily basis. Or put simply, it's all fun and games until suddenly you're the target of his attacks.

ETA: I should add that I do know Trumpers who do worship and adore him and regard him as a savior and demonstrate all the traits of someone in a cult of personality, but even these people love and laugh at his threats and blustering and bullying of other people and groups they hate.
 
Ramrouser said:
Trump's "threats" to NATO countries caused them to increase defense spending. In 2017 only 12 NATO allies met the NATO guideline to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense. Today it's 23.
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A minute ago you characterized this as "only 23," now you're blazoning it. Make up your mind...
 
finesse said:
And how much progress does that represent in the last few years?

ETA: Seems like MAGA wants to claim credit for something that's already mostly fixed.
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Ramrouser said:
Trump's "threats" to NATO countries caused them to increase defense spending. In 2017 only 12 NATO allies met the NATO guideline to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense. Today it's 23.
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Like clockwork...
 
superrific said:
1. If you think that Trump has fairly mainstream Republican ideas, you're a bigger idiot than I thought. Gee, have you wondered why so many Republicans, especially in the political class, became Never Trump? There are posters fitting that description on this board.
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He does and that's why the overwhelming majority of traditional Republicans voted for him (twice). Never Trumpers are a loud, but very small minority of Republicans. They're grossly overrepresented in legacy media.
superrific said:
2. Bet you didn't know that "Art of the Deal" was the title given to the book by the ghostwriter. As everyone in the know has long understood, Trump is actually not a dealmaker.
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Doesn't really matter if Art of the Deal was written with the help of a ghostwriter. Most celebrity books are written in such a manner.
superrific said:
3. You are correct that not **everything** that Trump does is Orbanization. But what is the right percentage? In my view, our leaders should be 0% fascist. You seem to be quite content with them being majority fascist, just as long as they are non fascist some of the time.
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I hate left wing fascism, i.e. Big Government liberals who enjoy ordering "little people" around and regulating all aspects of daily life. This revealed itself during COVID and Americans took notice.
superrific said:
4. It's funny to you, because you and your kind don't give a shit about other people. The idea of the US acquiring Greenland is traumatizing to most Greenlanders, but as long as your buddies get some shits and giggles out of it, it's all good, right? Who cares about other people anyway, especially if they ain't white.
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As far as Greenlanders being "traumatized" by Trump's moves to acquire the Country, let's see how this plays out. You could be correct, if most Greenlanders don't want it to happen it won't happen. I don't think the US wants to be an occupying power over a hostile population. A quick Google search reveals that 99%+ of Greenland is white. However, I note there are 373 people living there from the Philippines and 208 from Thailand.
 
Ramrouser said:
He does and that's why the overwhelming majority of traditional Republicans voted for him (twice). Never Trumpers are a loud, but very small minority of Republicans. They're grossly overrepresented in legacy media.

Doesn't really matter if Art of the Deal was written with the help of a ghostwriter. Most celebrity books are written in such a manner.

I hate left wing fascism, i.e. Big Government liberals who enjoy ordering "little people" around and regulating all aspects of daily life. This revealed itself during COVID and Americans took notice.

As far as Greenlanders being "traumatized" by Trump's moves to acquire the Country, let's see how this plays out. You could be correct, if most Greenlanders don't want it to happen it won't happen. I don't think the US wants to be an occupying power over a hostile population. A quick Google search reveals that 99%+ of Greenland is white. However, I note there are 373 people living there from the Philippines and 208 from Thailand.
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there is no such thing as left wing fascism.

fascism is by definition a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist and militaristic political movement defined by contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism and belief in a natural social hierarchy and rule by the elites.

the bogeyman you're searching for is communism or marxism. the united states has never even been remotely in danger of succumbing to either.
 
Ramrouser said:
He does and that's why the overwhelming majority of traditional Republicans voted for him (twice). Never Trumpers are a loud, but very small minority of Republicans. They're grossly overrepresented in legacy media.

Doesn't really matter if Art of the Deal was written with the help of a ghostwriter. Most celebrity books are written in such a manner.

I hate left wing fascism, i.e. Big Government liberals who enjoy ordering "little people" around and regulating all aspects of daily life. This revealed itself during COVID and Americans took notice.

As far as Greenlanders being "traumatized" by Trump's moves to acquire the Country, let's see how this plays out. You could be correct, if most Greenlanders don't want it to happen it won't happen. I don't think the US wants to be an occupying power over a hostile population. A quick Google search reveals that 99%+ of Greenland is white. However, I note there are 373 people living there from the Philippines and 208 from Thailand.
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89% of Greenland’s population is Greenlandic Inuit. In other words, not white.
 
It appears that 5 of the 8 laggards are Slovenia, Croatia, Luxemburg, Portugal and Belgium. Between them they have a combined GDP of 1.15 trillion, or about what the US spends on defense alone. But hey, let's risk breaking up the greatest defensive alliance on the planet for the sake of what amounts to a rounding error on our defense budget...
 
Germany, France and the UK combine for over half of Europe's NATO members' total GDP and all of them are spending over 2% on defense. I'm sure that more than makes up for Slovenia's and Luxemburg's shortfall...
 
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Ramrouser said:
23 better than 12 but it needs to be all 31 - in compliance.
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"Compliance" is probably reached by everyone based on the squishy language actually involved:

2014-2023: "... the guideline, created at a NATO summit in Wales in 2014, said members that had yet to reach 2% would “aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade with a view to meeting their NATO Capability Targets and filling NATO’s capability shortfalls.”

2024 this was updated to more of a commitment, albeit one with no deadline: "... NATO members agreed to firmer language related to the 2% target in 2023, formally declaring that “we make an enduring commitment to invest at least 2% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually on defence.” Lagadec said that “arguably for the first time the Allies HAVE made a hard commitment to reaching 2% (indeed, to reaching at least 2%) rather than merely ‘trying to get there if possible.’” He noted, though, that even this stronger declaration “doesn’t provide a deadline” to hit 2%. ..."


I am confident that every NATO country could reasonably claim compliance (to the extent the concept is even applicable) with the "aim to move ... with a view to meet" standard. And now that there is an actual standard, I assume that the lack of a deadline will give plenty of "compliance" wiggle room to the nations who have yet to meet the target.
 
Ramrouser said:
He does and that's why the overwhelming majority of traditional Republicans voted for him (twice). Never Trumpers are a loud, but very small minority of Republicans. They're grossly overrepresented in legacy media.

Doesn't really matter if Art of the Deal was written with the help of a ghostwriter. Most celebrity books are written in such a manner.

I hate left wing fascism, i.e. Big Government liberals who enjoy ordering "little people" around and regulating all aspects of daily life. This revealed itself during COVID and Americans took notice.

As far as Greenlanders being "traumatized" by Trump's moves to acquire the Country, let's see how this plays out. You could be correct, if most Greenlanders don't want it to happen it won't happen. I don't think the US wants to be an occupying power over a hostile population. A quick Google search reveals that 99%+ of Greenland is white. However, I note there are 373 people living there from the Philippines and 208 from Thailand.
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1. The overwhelming majority of Republicans voted for him because of negative partisanship. And maybe his views are consonant with the awakened mobs. But the party platform of the GOP didn't change much from 1980-2000, and then only a little bit in 2000 and 2004. Trump's agenda has little in common with those platforms.

2. There is no such thing as left-wing fascism. How can you not know that? There can be left-wing authoritarianism (although many would say that authoritarianism is inherently anathema to the left because the left has been defined by anti-authoritarianism literally since the Enlightenment and the Soviets were not leftists but state capitalists), but not left-wing fascism. In basketball, being a "big man" isn't defined entirely by height. Sometimes guys who are 6'6" and strong can be better interior players than 6'10" and lean. But Muggsy Bogues could never be a big man. It doesn't even make sense.

3. 99% of Greenland is white? WTF are you even talking about? Google did not tell you that. Maybe what happened was that you googled to find out that 90%+ of Greenland is NON WHITE and you got confused?

4. The point wasn't that Art of The Deal was ghostwritten. It's that it was never about dealmaking at all. It wasn't even really about Trump. It's pretty much universally agreed that the character "Donald Trump" was an amalgam of business and political figures that mostly had only tenuous connections to Trump.
 
Ramrouser said:
I hate left wing fascism, i.e. Big Government liberals who enjoy ordering "little people" around and regulating all aspects of daily life. This revealed itself during COVID and Americans took notice.
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I would think that most patriotic Americans would have understood that we were in a once-in-a-century pandemic that was very lethal in the early stages. It ended up killing 1 million Americans. Is that not enough?. How bad would the death toll need be to get people to wake up? As a patriotic citizen, I donned a mask, and I got the vaccine. to try to protect not just myself, but my fellow American citizens as well. There are times, for example WWII, when American citizens have to forgo their need for individual freedom, just for a bit (the HORROR), to defend the public good. The COVID pandemic was one of those of times.
 
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Past oriented vs. future oriented. Two sides same coin.
ETA Just a totally different world view which I'm beginning to think is irreconcilable in our current culture. Hopefully we can at some point reset.
 
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Just like America rejected Maga in 2018 and 2020 and will again in 2026 and 2028. Mandate!
 
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