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qqueenofhades · 3 years ago

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Supposed Leftists cannibalizing themselves instead of aiming their fangs at the right wing frankly just makes me think they harm out of fear towards an evil they see as too powerful to fight against, and thus turn against people they see as easier and weaker to hurt, even if it's their own side.

It's entirely possible. As I have said in all my other posts, there are a lot of contributing factors. What I really want to know, however, is when the bulk of leftist political critique switched to "hysterical, nonsensical, personal slanders coupled with unprovable and inaccurate broad-brush generalizations designed to make the Democrats look as bad as possible." Truly, there's a way to criticize your allies accurately and helpfully without just giving into Cloud Cuckoo Leftist Land, but that doesn't play as well in the distorted environment of social media, where pithy one-liners and out-of-context quotes go viral faster and reaffirm one's own sense of superior morality. But it does nothing, and doesn't address anything that's wrong. It sure as hell makes them worse, though.

Like. Here's food for thought: I personally feel that at least thus far (although it's already showing signs of changing, because y'know Democrats LISTEN TO SUGGESTIONS and alter their behavior accordingly), Joe Biden himself has MASSIVELY misjudged his personal, initial response to the situation. He gave a speech which was nice and said the right things, but mainly contained boilerplate platitudes with very few actual policy specifications as to things he personally, as chief executive, would order done, aside from promising a vague "whole of government" response. And even that is not to say that nothing was done; it was just that Biden himself, as the president and most visible Democratic elected leader, missed a critical moment to assertively seize hold of the discussion and shape it accordingly. The next raft of headlines we got were all about things Biden DIDN'T want to do: he opposed ending the filibuster to codify Roe, he didn't want to expand the court, he didn't want to order federal buildings in red states to provide abortion services, he didn't want to circumvent the Hyde Amendment, etc etc etc. This was because, apparently, Biden and his top policy advisors feared that this was "too polarizing" and drastic a response, and might undermine public confidence in institutions such as, whaddya know, SCOTUS.

This is because Biden is an old-school politician who has spent his entire career working within the usual confines of American democratic institutions, and his first instinct is still to trust them and think that they will operate as designed. The fact that they've completely gone off the rails, and that SCOTUS has been hijacked with extremists, is still a difficult thing for him to understand, and he's tending to underwhelming and insufficient responses as a result. However, a) SCOTUS has already lost legitimacy in the public's eyes (barely one-third of Americans trust it -- I think the exact number was like 37% at last polling, but I can't be sure) and b) ABORTION IS NOT A FRINGE ISSUE! Biden likewise has spent his career in the "don't discuss abortion" nineties-Democrat mindset, where it wasn't really a winning issue and the talking point was that abortions should be "safe, legal, and rare." But SIXTY PERCENT OF ALL AMERICANS oppose overturning Roe, including 67% of women. This is not something that Biden needs to tiptoe around. He needs to seize that ready-made bulwark of support and show that he is ready to lead on the issue, rather than be dragged along by progressive female Democrats.

Likewise, there were reports that Biden has nominated an anti-abortion lawyer for a federal judgeship in Kentucky, apparently as part of a deal with McConnell to get him to drop GOP opposition to future administrative and judicial nominees. The timing on this was terrible, the optics were equally bad, and he got (somewhat deservedly) bashed for it. However, Biden has already gotten a huge amount of incredibly diverse and progressive judicial nominees confirmed and seated, since he learned from the mistakes of the Obama years and Rahm "I don't give a shit about judges" Emanuel. Likewise, the absolute dregs of the Republican Senate, aka Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, have been auto-blocking every single one of Biden's lower-level appointees, including hundreds of Department of State and Defense employees and other critical government-functionary posts. They have no reason to do this aside from being performative asswipes who want to show that they're not cooperating with anything Biden wants to do, no matter how small. It has already caused difficulties in things like, say, responding to the Ukraine war and other foreign-policy issues where Biden is enjoying some success, such as his drive to reunite and expand NATO (now that Sweden and Finland are almost certain to join).

That being the case, a single district judge in Kentucky is unlikely to do MORE damage to abortion rights in this country than, you know, the fucking entire Supreme Court already did, and while I still don't agree with it (or the timing of it), the fact remains that there is more context for this action than just BIDEN SECRETLY HATES ABORTION AND IS A SENILE HYPOCRITE!!! This is still ultimately reflective on Mitch Fucking McConnell and the moral slime of the GOP caucus: rather than letting the president do his job and fill the ordinary foreign-service and civil servant posts and other completely uncontroversial, non-political appointments, you extort, threaten, and hold them all hostage until the president finally agrees to nominate an anti-abortion judge in your home state, which already has a trigger law that automatically kicked in at the overturn of Roe (though another judge has issued a temporary stay for the time being). And if Senate Democrats fight back and refuse to vote for this asshole, which would be nice if probably not on the cards since it would make McConnell et al even more vindictive, he doesn't get seated anyway!

Anyway, the headline this morning was that Biden is now in favor of getting rid of the filibuster at least in the case of a reproductive-rights carve-out, and 34 Senate Democrats (at last count) are pushing him to make a much more forceful personal response, including the issuance of an executive order or other policy steps. That is the vast majority of the Senate Democratic caucus, and highlights the (gasp, shocking) fact that "the Democrats" aren't a single monolithic entity with a single monolithic policy. Even if Biden himself failed hard at the first hurdle, the Congressional caucus clearly recognizes that there is a serious groundswell of public anger that needs to be responded to, and "vote in November" and tweeting boilerplate platitudes about respecting women's bodily autonomy doesn't cut it as an actual solution. They're also campaigning on this issue, yes, which is the sensible thing to do. But again, there is more to it than that.

In sum: my point is, see what I did here? I criticized Biden for things that were actually his fault and which he could take action to remedy, rather than yelling overheated nonsense about how he's a senile rapist scum of the earth secret Republican etc etc, insisting that "both parties were the same," and blaming the Democrats (and only the Democrats) for the initial action to overturn Roe in the first place. I recognized that different groups of Democrats had made different responses, and placed Biden's own actions in the context of his overall political career, which includes recognizing that an octogenarian centrist Catholic has consistently been so legislatively supportive of abortion and women's rights that it's repeatedly gotten him into trouble with ultra-partisan American Catholic bishops. He also trusts too much in American institutions and can't fully grasp the fact of how badly they have been damaged, hijacked, and already lost public confidence, which limits the range of options that he's willing to consider in response. However, he has showed the ability to listen to criticism from inside his own party and to adjust his thinking, so... that's already far more than a Republican would ever do.

Anyway. Yes. My point here is: You can absolutely criticize Democrats in extensive, constructive, and accurate ways that don't rely on baseless vitriol, social media clout-chasing, and personal insults, and aren't designed to just make yourself, the brave Twitter Keyboard Warrior, look even more Moral in response. However, a lot of them have totally lost the ability to do that, and seem to think that the best political argument is one that rips your actual political allies to shreds as much as possible. Which is, to say the least, unfortunate.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

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thisdaynews · 5 years ago

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Wike To Oshiomole: I'm A Trained Lawyer, Which University Did You Attend?

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Wike To Oshiomole: I'm A Trained Lawyer, Which University Did You Attend?

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PORT HARCOURT – GOVERNOR Nyesom Wike has asked embattled National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress ( APC) Adams Oshiomhole to resign over his failure to stop swearing of Sen Douye Diri as Bayelsa state Governor.

Wike, addressing the media Saturday in Port Harcourt, Rivers state in furtherance of his reactions to the political watershed in Bayelsa, also vowed that Oshiomhole and the APC would never succeed in wrestling political power from PDP in Rivers.

He said: “This is a country where you see people who do not have character. Today they sing a song, tomorrow they sing another. I think Oshiomhole as National Chairman of APC is not a character anybody should associate with.

“First, I have never been violent, will never be. However, when you see an armed robber come to your house, will you plead with the robber and say I beg you, leave my house. People think armed robbers are only those who cart away people’s money.

“The worst form of armed robbery is when you steal people’s mandate, like Oshiomhole is noted for. He thinks because he’s in the ruling party, he can use security to steal the mandate of the people. He was taught a lesson, a bitter lesson and I want to repeat, if you come to steal our mandate, the people will respond accordingly.

“They will oppose your stealing of their mandate and so Oshiomhole thinks because he is in the ruling party nobody should say anything or do anything. Stealing is not only when you go to rob a bank. The worse form of armed robbery is when you steal the mandate of the people”

Accusing Oshiomhole of always being driven by survival instincts, the Rivers Governor said he stopped attending the National Economic Council when Oshiomhole turned it into a forum for bashing former President Goodluck Jonathan after earlier going to praise Jonathan at Aso Villa for ensuring credible elections.

He said, “When Jonathan made sure elections were free and fair, Oshiomhole came to the Villa and thanked Jonathan. When Jonathan left office, one of the reason I don’t go to NEC meeting is because of Oshiomhole when he was yet a member.

“When Jonathan left, there was no day at the NEC meeting Oshiomhole will not bring Jonathan down. Meanwhile, that was the same man Oshiomhole went to praise for allowing one man one vote. The man left and Oshiomhole changed. That is his character.”

He further said, “Nigerians know one matter that led to the amendment of the electoral act where Governorship election has to go to the Supreme Court is because of Oshiomhole matter. So he cannot come out and say he was clean in terms of electoral process. That will be very bad.

“Oshiomhole said he fought godfatherism and the same time he wants to install himself as a godfather in Edo state. Why is he fighting Obaseki, because the man doesn’t take instruction from him. He preaches what he doesn’t practice. ”

Declaring total allegiance to the Peoples Democratic Party, Wike said, “I will not be a member of their (APC) party. I have always been PDP and they know that. Oshiomhole knows his party didn’t even score up to 25 per cent in my state. He cannot tell me that. Oshiomhole has nothing to say about me. His party is probing him about the so-called hospital he says he built. I am not the one.

“Shame should be on him that at the end of the day the PDP Candidate has been sworn in as governor of Bayelsa. You can’t come out and open your mouth and say it will never happen. Now it has happened. If I were him I will resign, leave. I am not his friend, so he cannot say, my friend.

“All he is doing today is because the governors and some leaders of the party are saying this man cannot lead our party. Oshiomhole has failed. He is a man who opens his mouth anyhow. And this should be his last time, the moment he goes further he will know that Rivers is not what he thinks it is.”

On Oshiomhole’s parable that he (Oshiomhole) is an antelope, and Wike a tortoise, the Rivers Governor responded, “It’s unfortunate that Oshiomhole will use that word, a tortoise challenging an Antelope. How can Oshiomhole compare himself to me. I’m well-read, a lawyer, life bencher. I have a first degree in Political Science, my second, Law and I went to the Nigerian Law School and I passed very well. Let Oshiomhole tell me which University he attended.

“Oshiomhole has the audacity to say nobody will be sworn in in Bayelsa, causing crisis in the country and nobody wants to call him to order but for people like us in Rivers. Because of people like Oshiomhole and his style of leadership, his party lost so many areas they ought not to have lost.

“What made them not to have candidates in Rivers and Zamfara, it’s because of Oshiomhole. Oshiomhole led to the problem they have in Bayelsa. Oshiomhole takes from two sides. He is not a man of integrity and nobody should take him seriously.”

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courtneytincher · 6 years ago

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‘Tell Them to Leave’: Trump Sics Rally Crowd on ‘The Squad’

Carolyn Kaster/APAt an arena rally in Greenville, North Carolina, on Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump quadrupled down on his recent racist attacks on four female Democratic lawmakers. He also chastised one of them for using “the big, fat, vicious…F-word” against him, alleging, “that’s not somebody that loves our country.”“She looks down with contempt on the hardworking American, saying that ignorance is pervasive in many parts of this country,” the president said of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), to cheering from the crowd, many of whom began chanting, “Send her back!”—enthusiastically joining in on the collective anti-Omar hate.Trump Rally Crowd Launches Into ‘Send Her Back’ Chant Over Ilhan OmarThe congresswoman is an American citizen, and a Somali refugee. Trump, of course, did nothing to object to the chant, and soon thereafter reiterated his position on the four congresswomen and like-minded Americans: “If they don’t love [the country], tell them to leave it.”Hours before taking the stage in Greenville, the president had tweeted that he’d be riffing on the topic that night, bringing the usual red-meat fare to his base supporters. “Big Rally tonight in Greenville, North Carolina. Lots of great things to tell you about… I’ll talk also about people who love, and hate, our Country (mostly love)!” he posted to Twitter on Wednesday morning.Of course the president was going to deliver for his fans. To abstain from this fight at such a big public event would betray every political and petty instinct he’s ever exhibited. Trump advisers across the board said the president didn’t really have a choice, given that his entire political branding is built on the perception that he picks fights and sticks to his guns. “I think it’d be wise for him to lean into it. No other direction to go,” said one source close to the Trump campaign.The president appears to be enjoying himself, as his critics bash him as the racist-in-chief and his defenders insist Democrats are the real racists. “Well, let’s put it this way,” Trump told the Daily Mail a few hours before he delivered his remarks at the rally. “I’m not unhappy.”Over the past few days, the president has tried to dominate the news cycle by continuing to expand on one of the more openly racist attack lines of his presidency: a tweeted declaration that four minority congresswomen—three of whom were born in the United States—should return to the countries from which they each came.“They’re complaining all the time,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday, building on his weekend social media posts about left-wing Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). “Very simply, you can leave. You can leave right now. Come back if you want, don’t come back, that’s OK too. But if you’re not happy, you can leave… I’m sure that there will be many people that won’t miss them.”The president’s comments came at a time of his announced nationwide raids on undocumented immigrants, as well as his recent asylum plan that could pose his gravest threat to migrants. This week, his racist tirades were defended, excused, or even laughed off by major players in the national Republican Party, with Team Trump arguing that the president didn’t mean it, or that he was correct to say it, or that he was merely being his typical, funny self.“It’s not uncommon for POTUS to tweet tongue-in-cheek 2drive home very obvious narratives,” Katrina Pierson, a Trump 2020 senior adviser, tweeted Sunday. “These ‘progressive women’ spend their time advocating for nations of their heritage & others instead of representing US while on our tax payroll - so bye.”And yet some Trump allies seemed less enthused about the president’s determination to make himself the center of attention in this particular news cycle. “As the left insist it’s racism, the right insist the Fab 4 are anti-American. A good time for all,” former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), a Trump surrogate, told The Daily Beast on Monday. “But most of us wish Trump had not jumped into the center of the Democrat circular firing squad.”Of course, those close to Trump don’t expect him to be letting up any time soon, even if certain advisers and supporters would prefer more restraint. The president is hardly known for showing that level of impulse control, and that applies to situations in which he’s lobbing racist taunts at Democratic enemies, and even in cases where he’s feuding with brutal dictators.In the days leading up to his first speech before the United Nations in late 2017, Trump asked his friends and top administration officials if they thought it’d be wise for him to mock North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his big U.N. speech. In polling his buddies and officials, the president revealed what he was itching to do during his address: He’d bash the dictator as the “rocket man” or “little rocket man,” according to two sources with knowledge of these conversations. Numerous people and confidants told him not to do it, thinking it unwise or unbecoming of a sitting president.He did it anyway.“Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime,” Trump, who had yet to befriend the “rocket man,” said before the U.N. General Assembly. The president also warned that the U.S. would “totally destroy North Korea” in a war. In the subsequent months, after a deluge of headlines and reels of cable news coverage Trump would make a point of teasing his advisers and friends who had urged him not to use his “rocket man” insult, the sources said.“When the president gets ahold of an insult or applause line that he sees working, getting him to put it down is like grabbing a bone from a dog,” a senior White House official told The Daily Beast. Regarding Trump’s talk of how the congresswomen should “go back” to other countries, the official simply predicted: “He’s going to be at this for a while.” Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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newstfionline · 7 years ago

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Liberals, You’re Not as Smart as You Think You Are

By Gerard Alexander, NY Times, May 12, 2018

I know many liberals, and two of them really are my best friends. Liberals make good movies and television shows. Their idealism has been an inspiration for me and many others. Many liberals are very smart. But they are not as smart, or as persuasive, as they think.

And a backlash against liberals--a backlash that most liberals don’t seem to realize they’re causing--is going to get President Trump re-elected.

People often vote against things instead of voting for them: against ideas, candidates and parties. Democrats, like Republicans, appreciate this whenever they portray their opponents as negatively as possible. But members of political tribes seem to have trouble recognizing that they, too, can push people away and energize them to vote for the other side. Nowhere is this more on display today than in liberal control of the commanding heights of American culture.

Take the past few weeks. At the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, the comedian Michelle Wolf landed some punch lines that were funny and some that weren’t. But people reacted less to her talent and more to the liberal politics that she personified. For every viewer who loved her Trump bashing, there seemed to be at least one other put off by the one-sidedness of her routine. Then, when Kanye West publicly rethought his ideological commitments, prominent liberals criticized him for speaking on the topic at all. Maxine Waters, a Democratic congresswoman from California, remarked that “sometimes Kanye West talks out of turn” and should “maybe not have so much to say.”

Liberals dominate the entertainment industry, many of the most influential news sources and America’s universities. This means that people with progressive leanings are everywhere in the public eye--and are also on the college campuses attended by many people’s children or grandkids. These platforms come with a lot of power to express values, confer credibility and celebrity and start national conversations that others really can’t ignore.

But this makes liberals feel more powerful than they are. Or, more accurately, this kind of power is double-edged. Liberals often don’t realize how provocative or inflammatory they can be. In exercising their power, they regularly not only persuade and attract but also annoy and repel.

In fact, liberals may be more effective at causing resentment than in getting people to come their way. I’m not talking about the possibility that jokes at the 2011 correspondents’ association dinner may have pushed Mr. Trump to run for president to begin with. I mean that the “army of comedy” that Michael Moore thought would bring Mr. Trump down will instead be what builds him up in the minds of millions of voters.

Consider some ways liberals have used their cultural prominence in recent years. They have rightly become more sensitive to racism and sexism in American society. News reports, academic commentary and movies now regularly relate accounts of racism in American history and condemn racial bigotry. These exercises in consciousness-raising and criticism have surely nudged some Americans to rethink their views, and to reflect more deeply on the status and experience of women and members of minority groups in this country.

But accusers can paint with very wide brushes. Racist is pretty much the most damning label that can be slapped on anyone in America today, which means it should be applied firmly and carefully. Yet some people have cavalierly leveled the charge against huge numbers of Americans--specifically, the more than 60 million people who voted for Mr. Trump.

In their ranks are people who sincerely consider themselves not bigoted, who might be open to reconsidering ways they have done things for years, but who are likely to be put off if they feel smeared before that conversation even takes place.

It doesn’t help that our cultural mores are changing rapidly, and we rarely stop to consider this. Some liberals have gotten far out ahead of their fellow Americans but are nonetheless quick to criticize those who haven’t caught up with them.

Within just a few years, many liberals went from starting to talk about microaggressions to suggesting that it is racist even to question whether microaggressions are that important. “Gender identity disorder” was considered a form of mental illness until recently, but today anyone hesitant about transgender women using the ladies’ room is labeled a bigot. Liberals denounce “cultural appropriation” without, in many cases, doing the work of persuading people that there is anything wrong with, say, a teenager not of Chinese descent wearing a Chinese-style dress to prom or eating at a burrito cart run by two non-Latino women.

Pressing a political view from the Oscar stage, declaring a conservative campus speaker unacceptable, flatly categorizing huge segments of the country as misguided--these reveal a tremendous intellectual and moral self-confidence that smacks of superiority. It’s one thing to police your own language and a very different one to police other people’s. The former can set an example. The latter is domineering.

This judgmental tendency became stronger during the administration of President Barack Obama, though not necessarily because of anything Mr. Obama did. Feeling increasingly emboldened, liberals were more convinced than ever that conservatives were their intellectual and even moral inferiors. Discourses and theories once confined to academia were transmitted into workaday liberal political thinking, and college campuses--which many take to be what a world run by liberals would look like--seemed increasingly intolerant of free inquiry.

It was during these years that the University of California included the phrase “America is the land of opportunity” on a list of discouraged microaggressions. Liberal politicians portrayed conservative positions on immigration reform as presumptively racist; Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, once dubiously claimed that she had heard Republicans tell Irish visitors that “if it was you,” then immigration reform “would be easy.”

When Mr. Obama remarked, behind closed doors, during the presidential campaign in 2008, that Rust Belt voters “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them,” it mattered not so much because he said it but because so many listeners figured that he was only saying what liberals were really thinking.

These are the sorts of events conservatives think of when they sometimes say, “Obama caused Trump.” Many liberals might interpret that phrase to mean that America’s first black president brought out the worst in some people. In this view, not only might liberals be unable to avoid provoking bigots, it’s not clear they should even try. After all, should they not have nominated and elected Mr. Obama? Should they regret doing the right thing just because it provoked the worst instincts in some people?

This is a limited view of the situation. Even if liberals think their opponents are backward, they don’t have to gratuitously drive people away, including voters who cast ballots once or even twice for Mr. Obama before supporting Mr. Trump in 2016.

Champions of inclusion can watch what they say and explain what they’re doing without presuming to regulate what words come out of other people’s mouths. Campus activists can allow invited visitors to speak and then, after that event, hold a teach-in discussing what they disagree with. After the Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that states had to allow same-sex marriage, the fight, in some quarters, turned to pizza places unwilling to cater such weddings. Maybe don’t pick that fight?

People determined to stand against racism can raise concerns about groups that espouse hate and problems like the racial achievement gap in schools without smearing huge numbers of Americans, many of whom might otherwise be Democrats by temperament.

Liberals can act as if they’re not so certain--and maybe actually not be so certain--that bigotry motivates people who disagree with them on issues like immigration. Without sacrificing their principles, liberals can come across as more respectful of others. Self-righteousness is rarely attractive, and even more rarely rewarded.

Self-righteousness can also get things wrong. Especially with the possibility of Mr. Trump’s re-election, many liberals seem primed to write off nearly half the country as irredeemable. Admittedly, the president doesn’t make it easy. As a candidate, Mr. Trump made derogatory comments about Mexicans, and as president described some African countries with a vulgar epithet. But it is an unjustified leap to conclude that anyone who supports him in any way is racist, just as it would be a leap to say that anyone who supported Hillary Clinton was racist because she once made veiled references to “superpredators.”

Liberals are trapped in a self-reinforcing cycle. When they use their positions in American culture to lecture, judge and disdain, they push more people into an opposing coalition that liberals are increasingly prone to think of as deplorable. That only validates their own worst prejudices about the other America.

Those prejudices will be validated even more if Mr. Trump wins re-election in 2020, especially if he wins a popular majority. That’s not impossible: The president’s current approval ratings are at 42 percent, up from just a few months ago.

Liberals are inadvertently making that outcome more likely. It’s not too late to stop.

Gerard Alexander is an associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia.

#liberals #self-righteousness #Gerard Alexander

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courtneytincher · 6 years ago

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‘Tell Them to Leave’: Trump Sics Rally Crowd on ‘The Squad’

Carolyn Kaster/APAt an arena rally in Greenville, North Carolina, on Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump quadrupled down on his recent racist attacks on four female Democratic lawmakers. He also chastised one of them for using “the big, fat, vicious…F-word” against him, alleging, “that’s not somebody that loves our country.”“She looks down with contempt on the hardworking American, saying that ignorance is pervasive in many parts of this country,” the president said of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), to cheering from the crowd, many of whom began chanting, “Send her back,” enthusiastically joining in on the collective anti-Omar hate.Trump Rally Crowd Launches Into ‘Send Her Back’ Chant Over Ilhan OmarThe congresswoman is an American citizen, and a Somali refugee. Trump, of course, did nothing to object to the chant, and soon thereafter reiterated his position on the four congresswomen and like-minded Americans: “If they don’t love [the country], tell them to leave it.”Hours before taking the stage in Greenville, the president had tweeted that he’d be riffing on the topic that night, bringing the usual red-meat fare to his base supporters. “Big Rally tonight in Greenville, North Carolina. Lots of great things to tell you about… I’ll talk also about people who love, and hate, our Country (mostly love)!” he posted to Twitter on Wednesday morning.Of course the president was going to deliver for his fans. To abstain from this fight, at such a big, public event, would betray every political and petty instinct he’s ever exhibited. Trump advisers across the board said the president didn’t really have a choice, given that his entire political branding is built on the perception that he picks fights and sticks to his guns. “I think it’d be wise for him to lean into it. No other direction to go,” said one source close to the Trump campaign.The president appears to be enjoying himself, as his critics bash him as the racist in chief and his defenders insist Democrats are the real racists. “Well, let’s put it this way,” Trump told the Daily Mail a few hours before he delivered his remarks at the rally. “I’m not unhappy.”Over the past few days, the president has tried to dominate the news cycle by continuing to expand on one of the more openly racist attack lines of his presidency: a tweeted declaration that four minority congresswomen—three of whom were born in the United States—should return to the countries from which they each came.“They’re complaining all the time,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday, building on his weekend social media posts about left-wing Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). “Very simply, you can leave. You can leave right now. Come back if you want, don’t come back, that’s OK too. But if you’re not happy, you can leave… I’m sure that there will be many people that won’t miss them.”The president’s comments came at a time of his announced nationwide raids on undocumented immigrants, as well as his recent asylum plan that could pose his gravest threat to migrants. This week, his racist tirades were defended, excused, or even laughed off by major players in the national Republican Party, with Team Trump arguing that the president didn’t mean it, or that he was correct to say it, or that he was merely being his typical, funny self.“It’s not uncommon for POTUS to tweet tongue-in-cheek 2drive home very obvious narratives,” Katrina Pierson, a Trump 2020 senior adviser, tweeted Sunday. “These ‘progressive women’ spend their time advocating for nations of their heritage & others instead of representing US while on our tax payroll - so bye.”And yet some Trump allies seemed less enthused about the president’s determination to make himself the center of attention in this particular news cycle. “As the left insist it’s racism, the right insist the Fab 4 are anti-American. A good time for all,” former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), a Trump surrogate, told The Daily Beast on Monday. “But most of us wish Trump had not jumped into the center of the Democrat circular firing squad.”Of course, those close to Trump don’t expect him to be letting up any time soon, even if certain advisers and supporters would prefer more restraint. The president is hardly known for showing that level of impulse control, and that applies to situations in which he’s lobbing racist taunts at Democratic enemies, and even in cases where he’s feuding with brutal dictators.In the days leading up to his first speech before the United Nations in late 2017, Trump asked his friends and top administration officials if they thought it’d be wise for him to mock North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his big U.N. speech. In polling his buddies and officials, the president revealed what he was itching to do during his address: He’d bash the dictator the “rocket man” or “little rocket man,” according to two sources with knowledge of these conversations. Numerous people and confidants told him not to do it, thinking it unwise or unbecoming of a sitting president.He did it anyway.“Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime,” Trump, who had yet to befriend the “rocket man,” said before the U.N. General Assembly. The president also warned that the U.S. would “totally destroy North Korea” in a war. In the subsequent months, after a deluge of headlines and reels of cable news coverage Trump would make a point of teasing his advisers and friends who had urged him not to use his “rocket man” insult, the sources said.“When the president gets ahold of an insult or applause line that he sees working, getting him to put it down is like grabbing a bone from a dog,” a senior White House official told The Daily Beast. Regarding Trump’s talk of how the congresswomen should “go back” to other countries, the official simply predicted: “He’s going to be at this for a while.” Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Carolyn Kaster/APAt an arena rally in Greenville, North Carolina, on Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump quadrupled down on his recent racist attacks on four female Democratic lawmakers. He also chastised one of them for using “the big, fat, vicious…F-word” against him, alleging, “that’s not somebody that loves our country.”“She looks down with contempt on the hardworking American, saying that ignorance is pervasive in many parts of this country,” the president said of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), to cheering from the crowd, many of whom began chanting, “Send her back,” enthusiastically joining in on the collective anti-Omar hate.Trump Rally Crowd Launches Into ‘Send Her Back’ Chant Over Ilhan OmarThe congresswoman is an American citizen, and a Somali refugee. Trump, of course, did nothing to object to the chant, and soon thereafter reiterated his position on the four congresswomen and like-minded Americans: “If they don’t love [the country], tell them to leave it.”Hours before taking the stage in Greenville, the president had tweeted that he’d be riffing on the topic that night, bringing the usual red-meat fare to his base supporters. “Big Rally tonight in Greenville, North Carolina. Lots of great things to tell you about… I’ll talk also about people who love, and hate, our Country (mostly love)!” he posted to Twitter on Wednesday morning.Of course the president was going to deliver for his fans. To abstain from this fight, at such a big, public event, would betray every political and petty instinct he’s ever exhibited. Trump advisers across the board said the president didn’t really have a choice, given that his entire political branding is built on the perception that he picks fights and sticks to his guns. “I think it’d be wise for him to lean into it. No other direction to go,” said one source close to the Trump campaign.The president appears to be enjoying himself, as his critics bash him as the racist in chief and his defenders insist Democrats are the real racists. “Well, let’s put it this way,” Trump told the Daily Mail a few hours before he delivered his remarks at the rally. “I’m not unhappy.”Over the past few days, the president has tried to dominate the news cycle by continuing to expand on one of the more openly racist attack lines of his presidency: a tweeted declaration that four minority congresswomen—three of whom were born in the United States—should return to the countries from which they each came.“They’re complaining all the time,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday, building on his weekend social media posts about left-wing Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). “Very simply, you can leave. You can leave right now. Come back if you want, don’t come back, that’s OK too. But if you’re not happy, you can leave… I’m sure that there will be many people that won’t miss them.”The president’s comments came at a time of his announced nationwide raids on undocumented immigrants, as well as his recent asylum plan that could pose his gravest threat to migrants. This week, his racist tirades were defended, excused, or even laughed off by major players in the national Republican Party, with Team Trump arguing that the president didn’t mean it, or that he was correct to say it, or that he was merely being his typical, funny self.“It’s not uncommon for POTUS to tweet tongue-in-cheek 2drive home very obvious narratives,” Katrina Pierson, a Trump 2020 senior adviser, tweeted Sunday. “These ‘progressive women’ spend their time advocating for nations of their heritage & others instead of representing US while on our tax payroll - so bye.”And yet some Trump allies seemed less enthused about the president’s determination to make himself the center of attention in this particular news cycle. “As the left insist it’s racism, the right insist the Fab 4 are anti-American. A good time for all,” former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), a Trump surrogate, told The Daily Beast on Monday. “But most of us wish Trump had not jumped into the center of the Democrat circular firing squad.”Of course, those close to Trump don’t expect him to be letting up any time soon, even if certain advisers and supporters would prefer more restraint. The president is hardly known for showing that level of impulse control, and that applies to situations in which he’s lobbing racist taunts at Democratic enemies, and even in cases where he’s feuding with brutal dictators.In the days leading up to his first speech before the United Nations in late 2017, Trump asked his friends and top administration officials if they thought it’d be wise for him to mock North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his big U.N. speech. In polling his buddies and officials, the president revealed what he was itching to do during his address: He’d bash the dictator the “rocket man” or “little rocket man,” according to two sources with knowledge of these conversations. Numerous people and confidants told him not to do it, thinking it unwise or unbecoming of a sitting president.He did it anyway.“Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime,” Trump, who had yet to befriend the “rocket man,” said before the U.N. General Assembly. The president also warned that the U.S. would “totally destroy North Korea” in a war. In the subsequent months, after a deluge of headlines and reels of cable news coverage Trump would make a point of teasing his advisers and friends who had urged him not to use his “rocket man” insult, the sources said.“When the president gets ahold of an insult or applause line that he sees working, getting him to put it down is like grabbing a bone from a dog,” a senior White House official told The Daily Beast. Regarding Trump’s talk of how the congresswomen should “go back” to other countries, the official simply predicted: “He’s going to be at this for a while.” Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

July 18, 2019 at 02:07AM via IFTTT

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