With Trump pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement like the huge idiot he is, today seems like a good time for another Trump open thread.
Have at it! No trolls or Trump fans.
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Trump Open Thread: June 2017 End of the World Edition
I saw it coming a mile away, but it still hit me like a blow.
What the fuck are we going to do now?
Well, of course Trump would back out. As Erick Erickson said, God will take care of everything, so why should we care about global warming?
*dry heaves*
I’m moving to Arizona so I can report back in a few months what the rest of America will be like in a few years.
I mean, the planet will still be here. Earth will endure.
It just won’t be, y’know, habitable for most forms of life.
It seems Drumpfie just thinks he can “renegotiate a better deal”. The man is desperately clinging to the one myth he has used to define himself for 45 years. I’d say it’s almost sad, if it wasn’t so purely hateful. I want him to be stripped of everything. Power, wealth, dignity, self-regard, all of it.
I want him to have nothing, and to know that he has nothing, and that he really never had anything.
I’m usually extremely sensitive to humiliation. I can’t watch it even in movies or shows – even shows like “The Office”. It’s too hard on me. But I would gloat and rewatch Drumpf’s. Over and over and over.
Innocent people are literally, not figuratively going to die because of what Trump has done. Yeah, he may have saved a few Jobs, but it won’t be worth it when people start dying to due to crop failure and the intense heat, not mention losing their homes when they flood.
They’re just determined to destroy the world, aren’t they?
He’s the worst dealmaker ever. He seems to be of the “bully them until they submit” school, which works great when grifting small contractors but not so well with legislators and world leaders.
Also, Carrier is laying people off from the plant that Trump claimed his amazing dealmaking saved.
CriticalDragon, yeah, I was so tempted to say something flip about my new waterfront property, but you’re right. People are going to die because of this. And assholes are going to get rich.
Anecdote: my husband and I live close to the coast, and when we bought our house 25 years ago, we were in the 500-year flood plain, meaning our house wasn’t expected to flood. Ten years ago, our property was declared to be in the 100-year flood plain, meaning that our mortgage company required us to buy expensive flood insurance. This past year, the last 35 feet of our lot was declared “Non-Usable Land in Flood Control Easement.” Nobody notified us of this, and the county isn’t buying the land. But, it’s obvious that the flood control district knows what’s coming.
We’ll be fine. But I worry about people worldwide who depend on agriculture to live. We’re screwing over the planet and most of the people – all the life – who live on it.
Dan, yeah, I had to remove that comment.
In 1903 Norwegian explorer Raoul Amudsen started through the Northwest Passage, the Arctic Ocean north of Canada. In 1906 he GOT through… He was the first in modern history to do so, after literally hundreds died of starvation, trapped in the relentless ice. He was also the LAST to do so until 2012 when an icebreaker bludgeoned its way through. In 2016, a CONTAINER SHIP sailed through, unmolested… in 2015 and again in 2016 A CRUISE SHIP SAILED THROUGH UNMOLESTED. Not “Extreme Cruises”, either, this was a Crystal Cruise Lines ship fulla filthy rich people (“oh how cute, look at the starving polar bears”). HEY, trump, YOU FUCKING BRAIN-DEAD MORON, IT’S GETTING WARMER
I have a certain number of friends who are what used to be called conservative, and historically Republican (although, AFAIK, not Drumpf supporters). We have mostly just agreed not to discuss politics in-depth, in order to preserve our friendships, and so far that has worked out all right.
One friend posted tonight on FB that she has decided to leave the Republican party behind for good, because of Drumpf, and to join the resistance against him. I don’t necessarily think this means she will join the Democratic party – I am having my own issues with them, too – but I’m at least heartened that she has “crossed over” so to speak. Although, TBH, she was always very supportive of environmental causes so I do think she was halfway to being a liberal anyway. Today’s withdrawal from the Paris Accord just completed the nudge.
I’ve been thinking that it’s time that Republicans, and even conservatives, realize that those labels no longer represent whatever it is they believe in. For the friends I know, they say they believe in things like: fiscal responsibility, smaller government, pro-business and job growth, the things that we used to call “moderate”. But they need to realize now that being a “conservative” no longer means those things.
Being Republican and being conservative has been forever tainted by Drumpf; by the so-called “alt-right” and by the far-right Evangelical Christians. It now means Far Right Extremist. It now means Racist, Sexist, Islamaphobe, Homophobe, Transphobe, Corporate Shill; it means Pay for Play; it means Party Over Country; it means hate speech and harrassment; it means tolerating neo-nazis and subscribing to a nativist, nationalist, white-supremacist ideology. It means going backward. It means oppression.
My moderate friends need to find a new label, and a new party. I am getting ready to tell them
Someone asked if we’re gearing up for another Civil War. My mind shies away from that, but in my heart I wonder if we aren’t already in the first skirmishes.
I think, I’m too old to be a soldier.
I think, I”m too tired to fight.
I think, I don’t know if I could hurt someone, or take a life, even in war.
I think, I don’t want to lose my son to this.
I think, I’m scared. I think, it might already be happening.
@Policy of Madness:
I read recently that he had asked Angela Merkel during her visit here, something like 11 times if her could renegotiate our trade deal with Germany, and she had to tell him each time, “No, you can’t negotiate directly with us; you have to go through the EU.”
And then, like the 11th time, he finally seemed to *get it*.
But THEN! During this recent trip? Back to asking to re-negotiate trade directly with Germany.
Yeah, “King of the Deal” pffffft, what a load. Legend only in his own mind.
What needs to be done (ASSuming it’s possible) is to have someone – or several someones – who can speak the language of the Cadillac Christians and have them explain to them what being Biblical Stewards of the Earth actually means.
Hint: it doesn’t mean bleed the place dry to line your pockets. It means try not to poison the earth, sky, and sea as you make the nice new shiny things to play with.
But I’ll expect the Cadillac Christians to listen to that message when Hell freezes over. ‘Cause they already believe that screwing everyone over who isn’t them is in society’s best interest. How can it be otherwise?
/sarcasm.
I can’t really see a way forward for America that doesn’t involve splitting up – the two ideologies at work here are too different to ever reconcile, and when one side has its fingers this far up its ears and openly saying they prefer “alternative facts”, there’s no going back from that. Secede, start again without the twats.
I’m honestly not too distressed by this news – make no mistake, it’s an absolutely fucking stupid thing to do (keeping his track record up), but it’ll take at least three years for the decision to actually start changing things, and I’m hoping that on a state level, leaders will begin to have the courage to just ignore him – same as for the multiple failed attempts at travel bans.
I feel a little better after seeing CA Governor Brown make a statement to CNN regarding our state’s commitment to our own climate goals.
I think we can do it. And what’s more, we can be an example to other states, and even exert leverage on them for interstate business. You want some of that Beverly Hills/Silicon Valley cheddar? You play by Los Angeles/San Francisco rules.
@ dreemr;
re: conservatives, ‘publicans, and their ilk. It’s not trump, he is a symptom of what started with Reagan. The gop became the party of fundamentalist christians, and it’s getting worse every election cycle. There really are NO conservatives in the Republican Party. There are fundamentalist christians and people who are afraid of losing their seats to fundamentalist christians.
ETA: it’s not so much “the god-christ will save us” as “we can make it be true by BELIEVING hard enough” which, in the end, is the same root belief
Fundamentalist Christianity is code for white supremacy.
It’s not an accident that “fundamentalist” and “white supremacist” outcomes match up 100% of the time. Fundamentalism was invented at the same time the trans-Atlantic slave trade was invented, to provide a Biblical justification for what was otherwise recognizable as an evil thing. It remained all about “Biblical literalism” and “inerrancy” until the 1960s and 1970s, when black Civil Rights leaders started using the Bible and Biblical morality to much greater effect than the white supremacists ever accomplished. Then suddenly anti-abortionism was brought in, so that non-fundamentalists could be painted as baby-killers and the white supremacists could claim they had the moral high ground. Fundamentalists didn’t give the first shit about abortion until they figured out that they could use it to bludgeon black people and the white people who supported black people.
The GOP is a white supremacist party. The Democratic party has a white supremacy problem, too, don’t get me wrong, but the GOP makes white supremacy a core plank, and has done so since it began the Southern Strategy to win over white supremacists during the Civil Rights era. The overlap between white fundamentalism and white supremacy is 100%.
@Weird (Encouraged by the RESISTANCE!!!!) Eddie & @Policy of Madness
AGREED & AGREED.
So, you think “Republican” is tainted, but maybe “conservative” is still okay?
I just feel like “conservative” is just starting to mean “anti-liberal” now, but maybe I’m just getting jaded..
I’m not super-stoked about the Democratic party, either. I never vote in the primaries because you have to declare yourself a member of a political party to do so, and I have refused to do that for 30 years now.
Because it’s nobody’s goddam business lol.
But the fact of the matter is, I almost always vote Democrat, because at least they seemed to be trying. And a lot of the time the Democratic ideals more or less aligned with mine, at least, as much as I could really hope for.
There’s just so much division. It seems like we should have all kinds of momentum but there’s no clear direction. My resistance groups are good at resisting. But as far as anyone coming up for a plan for the next election cycle? It’s like herding cats. Lots of resentments. Lots of divisiveness between the Bernie supporters and the Hilary supporters – it’s like nobody can pass up an opportunity to make sure whoever they’re talking with knows that well we held our noses and voted for Hilary anyway or Bernie isn’t even a Democrat why is he weaseling into the party throwing his weight around etc.
It doesn’t give one much hope when what we need to be doing is mobilizing those that skipped the election so they’ll vote in the midterms. But if they wouldn’t come out in 2016, what do we have to bring them out in 2018? My state’s one congressional representative is up for reelection and there hasn’t been a single Democrat floated as an opponent yet. I am pretty sure we’re going to be facing 2018 and be caught with our pants down when we have an opportunity to turn the Legislature over.
Oh well, ranting. Forgive me. Anxious. Frustrated.
@dreemr
Gonna hafta disagree with ya pretty strongly there. Unless your friends are quite old indeed, they never knew a Republican Party that wasn’t backwards and deplorable. They were just less loud about it. Everything they’re supposedly only about now, they were just as about in ’68 and ’72 and ’80 and ’88 and ’00. Tho, I guess the Islamophobia is kinda sorta new…
And Trump didn’t taint ‘conservatism’. They chose him. He won the primaries fair and square. By a significant margin. Presumably the most conservative voters in the country saw and heard Donald Trump for months and thought ‘yep, that’s my guy’. And those that didn’t looked at Ted Cruz or John Kasich or Marco Rubio and thought the same thing. They would all have been better, but let’s not pretend that bar isn’t at ground level
Whatever helps your friends feel better about not voting for fascists in 2018 and 2020, I suppose. But I’m really not ready to let muffugas off the hook for moving the Overton window just cos they, personally, didn’t support Trump, individually. I probably will hafta be ready eventually. Ain’t gonna be happy about it tho…
@David
1)comments policy, I reckon
2)y’all don’t get to leave me, fuckers…
Well, at the rate sea levels are rising, with any luck, Mar-a-Lago will soon be Mar-EN-Lago, as a Panama-born friend of mine quipped.
And hey howdy, there’s a sinkhole opening right near it already. Not so good for the other locals, maybe, but I’m sure more than a few of them will be grateful to see that toilet finally flushed.
@Axecalibur
Not really. It just went into hiding like anti-black racism did from time to time.
Citation: The Crusades, Roman invasion of the Middle East, European wars with the Ottoman Empire, the Suez Crisis.
@Axe – well, you’re not under any obligation to let myfriends off the hook.
On the other hand, well, just bear in mind that they’re human beings, and there is more to them than politics, at least in my eyes they are multi-dimensional. And, again, at least to me, their friendship is worth it to me, for reasons I won’t bore you with. But that doesn’t have any bearing on YOU, of course!
And I’m sure as hell not seceding jack shit; this is MY country, too, I’m not leaving it for those boogers.
@dreemr
Conservative means exactly what it has always meant: a desire to retain and strengths existing patterns of oppression and privilege. That has been the fundamental core of conservatism since Hume and Burke, and it never has and never will mean anything else.
‘Fiscal responsibility’= cut social safety nets and infrastructure spending
‘ smaller government’=No civil rights laws, domestic abuse laws, environmental regulations, etc.
‘pro-business’= anti union, opposed to workplace safety regulations, harassment policies, equal opportunity employment rules…
‘Job growth ‘= a thing that conservative policies have never actually achieved.
Policy of Madness,
I agree that fundies overlap heavily with white supremacists, but the history you recount isn’t accurate. The name “fundamentalist” was coined in 1920, and it was a reference to a series of essays called “The Fundamentals” that was published in 1910. Fundamentalism is in no way connected with the Atlantic slave trade.
Fundamentalism is based on the doctrines of inerrancy and dispensationalism, and grew out of Evangelicalism.
The doctrine of “inerrancy” was developed at Princeton Seminary starting around 1840. At that time there were still slaves in New Jersey, but the process of “gradual abolition” had begun there in 1804. The US had abolished the Atlantic slave trade in 1807 (though slavery itself continued until 1865). This overlapped with slavery, but it came at the tail end, after the end of the Atlantic slave trade, and didn’t arise with it in 1640 in Jamestown.
Dispensationalism began in England in the 1830’s, and became popular in the US around 1909 when the Scofield Bible was published.
Evangelicalism traces its roots to the First Great Awakening in the 1730’s and 1740’s (about 100 years after the US-Atlantic slave trade had begun in Jamestown). One of the notable outcomes of the First Great Awakening was that white people accepted black members into their churches, and in some (rare) cases allowed black people to become their preachers. They also encouraged literacy among slaves (“so they could read the Bible”). They were by no means abolitionist, but their message was egalitarian, and they were certainly not mere shills for the Atlantic slave trade. The association of black people with Southern Baptist churches began around this time.
In the Second Great Awakening, which began around 1790, prompted rapid growth of the evangelical denominations that came out of the First Great Awakening. It was around this time that women converted in large numbers, giving rise to the gender imbalance in Christianity (the so-called “feminization of Christianity”) that still persists. These Evangelicals supported abolition of slavery, abstention from alcohol, and women’s rights.
Fundamentalism grew out of a split in the Evangelicals over evolution, on the one hand, and Higher Criticism on the other. The ones who clung to biblical inerrancy and opposed evolution generally became Fundamentalist. Progressive Christianity came out of the same Evangelical movement, from among the ones who didn’t go the fundie route.
It doesn’t help us fight fundie wingnuts today to get the facts so wrong as to spin wild stories like that they’re the ones who invented African slavery.