RFK jr to announce ban on all vaccines until he understands what they are

[lawtig02]

I don't think this is quite right. The future has yet to be written. I would say that it's fantasy to assume that there will definitely be legal or political constraints. It's unwise to be confident in their emergence. But it's not impossible.

I read one article quoting a staffer on Capitol Hill (note that there are so many staffers that the value of a staffer comment is probably quite low, but anyway) as saying (this is a paraphrase), "these people are in the Senate because they want power. They aren't going to just hand it all over to Trump." The first part is true, at least in many cases. It's hard to see Dave McCormick as anything but a rich guy who is bored with being rich and wants power instead. It's the second part of that statement that remains the open question.

I’ll maintain that there are no constraints until the Dems reclaim at least one house of Congress. I do think we’ll have elections in 2026, and if Dems do well, some accountability could be restored. But I’ve seen nothing that would suggest Trump will be constrained by any political or legal process over the next two years at least.

 

[StrangePackage]

 

[Mulberry Heel]

I know that many, many people continue whistling past the graveyard and saying it won't be that bad, but my own feeling remains that this is all going to end in disaster - another depression or at least severe recession, chaos and incompetency in the government much worse than his first term, and deep cuts to necessary government services and the social safety net that is going to make millions of people's lives much worse. Not to mention the spectacle of watching federal government agencies go after people merely for exercising free speech and criticizing the government and Dear Leader's administration. And I'm not saying that Trumpers will ever blame him for any of it - they'll just find some way to blame Democrats instead - all I'm saying is that I think it's going to happen, because many of Trump's appointees are lunatics and incompetent nutcases, and they're going to eventually seriously screw things up for everyone.

 

[OGtruthhurts]

“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters"

Have to hand it to the sob he told the truth one time

 

[superrific]

I’ll maintain that there are no constraints until the Dems reclaim at least one house of Congress. I do think we’ll have elections in 2026, and if Dems do well, some accountability could be restored. But I’ve seen nothing that would suggest Trump will be constrained by any political or legal process over the next two years at least.

I get your point, but we don't know. Gaetz got punked before December.

 

[lawtig02]

I get your point, but we don't know. Gaetz got punked before December.

Fair enough. I’ll consider Kash Patel to be the canary in the coal mine. If he becomes FBI director, the Pubs will be conceding they have no functional control over Trump’s worst impulses.

 

[superrific]

Fair enough. I’ll consider Kash Patel to be the canary in the coal mine. If he becomes FBI director, the Pubs will be conceding they have no functional control over Trump’s worst impulses.

You could say the same about Tulsi.

 

[lawtig02]

You could say the same about Tulsi.

Agree. Tulsi could do immeasurable damage to our national security, but Kash in control of the FBI would continue the terrifying parallels between America in 2015-2024 and Germany in 1932-1938.

 

[gtyellowjacket]

I know that many, many people continue whistling past the graveyard and saying it won't be that bad, but my own feeling remains that this is all going to end in disaster - another depression or at least severe recession, chaos and incompetency in the government much worse than his first term, and deep cuts to necessary government services and the social safety net that is going to make millions of people's lives much worse. Not to mention the spectacle of watching federal government agencies go after people merely for exercising free speech and criticizing the government and Dear Leader's administration. And I'm not saying that Trumpers will ever blame him for any of it - they'll just find some way to blame Democrats instead - all I'm saying is that I think it's going to happen, because many of Trump's appointees are lunatics and incompetent nutcases, and they're going to eventually seriously screw things up for everyone.

I think the reason plenty of folks are downplaying Trump is a little about a boy crying wolf. We were all around the first time when every Trump policy position or appointment was just the first step to fascism. And then it didn't happen. The Trump/Biden transition certainly wasn't peaceful but it was a transition. We didn't have all the worst case scenarios people were dreaming about and now that those same worst case scenarios are being repeated, folks are ignoring them.

 

[Lando]

I know that many, many people continue whistling past the graveyard and saying it won't be that bad, but my own feeling remains that this is all going to end in disaster - another depression or at least severe recession, chaos and incompetency in the government much worse than his first term, and deep cuts to necessary government services and the social safety net that is going to make millions of people's lives much worse. Not to mention the spectacle of watching federal government agencies go after people merely for exercising free speech and criticizing the government and Dear Leader's administration. And I'm not saying that Trumpers will ever blame him for any of it - they'll just find some way to blame Democrats instead - all I'm saying is that I think it's going to happen, because many of Trump's appointees are lunatics and incompetent nutcases, and they're going to eventually seriously screw things up for everyone.

The first Trump term gave us an economic collapse, hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths, lost rights, and an armed insurrection. We tend to underestimate the damage that was already done just because it didn't look like Mad Max at the end of it.

 

[superrific]

And then it didn't happen. The Trump/Biden transition certainly wasn't peaceful but it was a transition. We didn't have all the worst case scenarios people were dreaming about and now that those same worst case scenarios are being repeated, folks are ignoring them.

Just stop. Hitler to Theodor Heuss was also a transition. Transitions happen by definition. "Look at how awesome we are because we had a transition" is something no country ever has said. The idea of a peaceful transition of power sets forth one condition, not two. Getting the transition right but not the peaceful part is not worth 50%. It's worth 0%.

So quit it. We are not going to be able to rely on a GOP VP doing the right thing again -- in part because Pence almost didn't do the right thing. J6 was in fact everything we feared about Trump: he fomented an insurrection; he made no effort to quell the violence because he wanted it to happen; and the plan -- as we have learned now in great detail -- was to overturn the election and stay in power having lost.

Like all both-siders, you are just exhausting. It's a never ending fount of bullshit.

 

[ZenMode]

I don't think this is quite right. The future has yet to be written. I would say that it's fantasy to assume that there will definitely be legal or political constraints. It's unwise to be confident in their emergence. But it's not impossible.

I read one article quoting a staffer on Capitol Hill (note that there are so many staffers that the value of a staffer comment is probably quite low, but anyway) as saying (this is a paraphrase), "these people are in the Senate because they want power. They aren't going to just hand it all over to Trump." The first part is true, at least in many cases. It's hard to see Dave McCormick as anything but a rich guy who is bored with being rich and wants power instead. It's the second part of that statement that remains the open question.

I agree and will add two things...one that few will likely agree with...

First, and less controversial, is the fact that Republican politicians in Congress will be up for re-election long after Trump is gone and they can't afford to have Trump "burn it to the ground" with dogmatic and criminal idiocy.

Second, a difference in political ideology doesn't make someone an inherently bad person. I don't think RFK is a bad person. I don't think Pam Bondi is a bad person. I don't think Dr. Oz is a bad person. I think, when push comes to shove, many or most will resist doing something truly dangerous for the country and will push back on anything dangerous that Trump may want to do.

 

[finesse]

Sufficient disengagement and no introspection is enough.

An example carried to an extreme.

Arendt found Eichmann an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat, who in her words, was ‘neither perverted nor sadistic’, but ‘terrifyingly normal’. He acted without any motive other than to diligently advance his career in the Nazi bureaucracy. Eichmann was not an amoral monster, she concluded in her study of the case, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963). Instead, he performed evil deeds without evil intentions, a fact connected to his ‘thoughtlessness’, a disengagement from the reality of his evil acts. Eichmann ‘never realised what he was doing’ due to an ‘inability… to think from the standpoint of somebody else’. Lacking this particular cognitive ability, he ‘commit[ted] crimes under circumstances that made it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he [was] doing wrong’.

 

[superrific]

Second, a difference in political ideology doesn't make someone an inherently bad person. I don't think RFK is a bad person. I don't think Pam Bondi is a bad person. I don't think Dr. Oz is a bad person. I think, when push comes to shove, many or most will resist doing something truly dangerous for the country and will push back on anything dangerous that Trump may want to do.

Doesn't it kind of depend, though, on the political ideology? Like, I do think Nick Fuentes is a bad person, knowing nothing more about him than he's a white supremacist who doesn't think women should be allowed to vote. That's enough. He is a bad person.

I have no idea if Pam Bondi is a bad person. I'm quite certain RFK is a bad person -- a terrible one, in fact (though that's not necessarily about political ideology). Dr. Oz isn't a bad person because he's a GOPer, but it's not irrational to think that he is given how much money he has made from selling so much snake oil.

You have absolutely no basis for thinking that many or most will resist doing something truly dangerous for the country. For one thing, many of them have already shown that they will do just that -- 147 Republican Senators or Representatives voted to sustain objections to EC votes in 2021. Then virtually every GOP house member and virtually every Republican Senator voted against impeaching or convicting Trump, who had of course just staged an insurrection. So when you say that these people won't do something truly dangerous -- I mean, what are you smoking? You're just guessing. So is lawtig. But at least he can point to evidence.

 

[lawtig02]

I think the reason plenty of folks are downplaying Trump is a little about a boy crying wolf. We were all around the first time when every Trump policy position or appointment was just the first step to fascism. And then it didn't happen. The Trump/Biden transition certainly wasn't peaceful but it was a transition. We didn't have all the worst case scenarios people were dreaming about and now that those same worst case scenarios are being repeated, folks are ignoring them.

Yeah, this was a long way from the worst case scenario, I guess.

 

[gtyellowjacket]

Yeah, this was a long way from the worst case scenario, I guess.

It really was. I heard the worst case scenarios on here and other places and they didn't happen. When J6 riots happened and we still got a new president, those worst case scenarios of Hitler style purges and dictatorships still seemed pretty hollow to lots of people.

And we are getting those same worst case scenarios so I'm guessing that's why people don't seem that concerned.

 

[Mulberry Heel]

I think the reason plenty of folks are downplaying Trump is a little about a boy crying wolf. We were all around the first time when every Trump policy position or appointment was just the first step to fascism. And then it didn't happen. The Trump/Biden transition certainly wasn't peaceful but it was a transition. We didn't have all the worst case scenarios people were dreaming about and now that those same worst case scenarios are being repeated, folks are ignoring them.

I'll just post Lando's post here: "The first Trump term gave us an economic collapse, hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths, lost rights, and an armed insurrection. We tend to underestimate the damage that was already done just because it didn't look like Mad Max at the end of it."

Not exactly worst case scenario but it was still pretty damn bad. And describing the insurrection as "wasn't peaceful but it was a transition" is an understatement of major proportions. And the fact is Trump's cabinet and administrative choices in his first term, which were still not great, were still generally within usual political norms. Relatively few of his choices this time around have been anything other than alarming: RFK, Jr. in charge of healthcare? A Fox News host in charge of the Defense Department? People who have openly spoke of using the government to go after Trump's critics and anyone who opposes him (and them) placed in charge of the FBI and FCC and other agencies? It's all pretty damned concerning, if not frightening. But I'm sure everything will be fine this time around. Really.

 

[sringwal]

I think the reason plenty of folks are downplaying Trump is a little about a boy crying wolf. We were all around the first time when every Trump policy position or appointment was just the first step to fascism. And then it didn't happen. The Trump/Biden transition certainly wasn't peaceful but it was a transition. We didn't have all the worst case scenarios people were dreaming about and now that those same worst case scenarios are being repeated, folks are ignoring them.

All Trump does is cry wolf. There continues to be a double standard in how the parties, and their members, are expected to react, and behave.

 

[farce©]

I don't think RFK is a bad person. I don't think Pam Bondi is a bad person. I don't think Dr. Oz is a bad person. I think, when push comes to shove, many or most will resist doing something truly dangerous for the country and will push back on anything dangerous that Trump may want to do.

Well, you’re just wrong. They are corrupt.

 

[farce©]

It really was. I heard the worst case scenarios on here and other places and they didn't happen. When J6 riots happened and we still got a new president, those worst case scenarios of Hitler style purges and dictatorships still seemed pretty hollow to lots of people.

And we are getting those same worst case scenarios so I'm guessing that's why people don't seem that concerned.

Trump successfully undermined the faith and confidence of a significant number of Americans in our institutions, doing irreparable damage to the country.