All Things Trump: Is it over yet?

[Sean Hayden]

--ssdd then?

[JimC]

Some get that fucking nuclear football away from him!

[Seabass]

Not the Onion.

Trump declares Twitter national security threat after #DiaperDon trends following meltdown at miniature table

[Tero]

Trump U-Turns On Day-Old Promise To Leave White House, Insists Biden ‘Prove’ His Votes Were Legal

Trump’s Attempt to Shift Burden of Proof to Biden Shows His Election Lawsuits Are Garbage
https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/t ... e-garbage/

feminist next door
@emrazz
Replying to
@realDonaldTrump
Dear law students, this is called “burden shifting.” Don’t do this. You will lose.
11:06 AM · Nov 27, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

[Brian Peacock]

[Scot Dutchy]

Has he lost the use of his legs?

[Scot Dutchy]

DiaperDon


‘Mini desk. Tiny hands. Small soul’: Trump mocked for giving speech at little table

#DiaperDon trends on Twitter after outgoing president’s furniture steals limelight

For a US president obsessed by size – his hands, his wealth, his crowds – Donald Trump made something of a bold U-turn on Thursday night by addressing the country from a desk seemingly designed for a leprechaun.

Trump said on Thursday he would leave the White House if the electoral college votes for the Democratic president-elect, Joe Biden – the closest he has come to admitting defeat – but his furniture stole the limelight.

While he harangued reporters and repeated unfounded allegations of electoral fraud, the internet zeroed in on his unusually small desk. Some called it symbolic of Trump’s diminished stature, some wondered if it was photoshopped (it wasn’t), most just laughed.

The actor Mark Hamill tweeted: “Maybe if you behave yourself, stop lying to undermine a fair election & start thinking of what’s good for the country instead of whining about how unfairly you are treated, you’ll be invited to sit at the big boy’s table.”

The hashtag #DiaperDon swiftly trended on Twitter, with people mocking the president as an infant banished to the children’s table for Thanksgiving.

[Brian Peacock]

We were lucky to get Trump...

[Hermit]

We were lucky to get Trump...

The title is weird, but Monbiot makes several good points.

So, what to do? I suggest the denizens of the US put Biden's feet to the fire - hard. Support the New Democrats. Replace moderate Democrats wherever possible.

[Tero]

man who got casinos to go bankrupt does it again (but not his own money)

Wear A Mask Face with medical mask Blue heart Retweeted
Charlotte Clymer Rainbow flag
@cmclymer
Let me get this straight: against the expert advice of everyone and anyone credible, Donald Trump paid $3 million for a Wisconsin recount that wound up giving Biden more net votes? Oh, that's beautiful. That's art.

[Sean Hayden]

We were lucky to get Trump...

My first reaction is to dismiss this as populist nonsense.

This piece: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-eu ... -and-left/ points out several potential problems with his beliefs.

I think he's also likely wrong about what caused Trump.

[Tero]

A large part of Trump voter thinking is the "I can do this, I don't need no stinking government." Then we get a pandemic and they reluctanly allow government to take over a small part of their lives. Temporarily.

[Sean Hayden]

Whatever their thinking, they're "the people" to.

...and "the people" are part of the problem.

[Brian Peacock]

We were lucky to get Trump...

My first reaction is to dismiss this as populist nonsense.

This piece: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-eu ... -and-left/ points out several potential problems with his beliefs.

I think he's also likely wrong about what caused Trump.

I've read it twice now and still not really sure what Dixon's wants us to take away from the piece - other than 'democracy is difficult', or similar...

...
[T]he assumption that deliberation will lead to consensus and the ‘People’s Will’ is problematic. This is because it suggests an intolerant refusal to accept the persistence and legitimacy of pluralism and disagreement among the people.
...
Radical Idealists, of the left and right, are unable to anticipate, imagine or accept that people acting and deliberating in ‘good faith’ could come ‘rationally’ to different conclusions.
...
Radical Idealists also underestimate representative democracy and the influence of the people. Politicians are often, but not always, forced to take public opinion into account.
...
[T]he aspiration to a deliberative, ‘rational consensus’ of the ‘People’s Will’ is impossible and dangerous. This is because it can only be achieved by denying, rather than encouraging, the pluralism and debate essential to and the reason for democracy.

... and that democracy is too important to give 'The People' too loud a voice, because the noisy will always drown out the quiet. This might be a good point if the ideas of the noisy are of equal value or merit to the views of the quiet, but in reality (or, ideally) ideas would be considered within a particular social-political context. The quiet view may be more practical or compassionate or cheaper or whatever than the noisy view - but surely that goes both ways on any and every issue depending on the context(?)

What he doesn't really engage with is the idea -- Monbiot's basic view -- that the 'The People' have unwittingly ceded the operation of democracy to a class of political operators who have a vested personal, political, and/or economic interest in the outcomes of the systems they control, one which stands apart from the general interests of 'The People': that the representative models we're currently operating seem to be failing to encourage and reward administrative competence and political honesty, and instead have led us to a point where incompetence, cronyism and corruption are not just tolerated, but appear to be accepted as a kind of norm.

Dixon seems to think that an elected representative in government has a greater level of expertise and/or a greater capacity to see the big picture and to balance competing views than, say, a deliberative forum of citizens who've been asked to explore this-or-that issue and draw up recommendations. But even if that's true it's only because the representative in government has greater access to information, the authority to filter that information to suit their purpose (for good and for ill), and a whole machinery in place to facilitate doing something with/about it. In these circumstances the political operator can make a disproportionate amount of noise and easily drown out the quiet view of the general public, granting 'Radical Idealists' in government far more power and influence in actuality than the cited 'Radical Idealists' who apparently only want to talk about deliberative 'direct democracy' in order to push a progressive agenda.

In fact, I'm not sure that his characterisation of 'Radical Idealists' in relation to this debate isn't just a red herring or an exercise in poisoning the well from the off.

So if we're going to explore the idea of some form of deliberative or direct democracy we should probably start by acknowledging what the current systems are/aren't achieving and what direct democracy might contribute in response to that and leave aside context-free assertions that it can lead to the 'wrong' choices being made or 'bad' policies being implemented.

[Tero]

Well, the US system is going to always give Republicans more politicians in congress and Presidency. People in cities will eventually go 70-90% Democrat and independent. Capturing just 55% of the vote in their districts, Republicans are going to have a voice. Even without gerrymandering.