If there is really a significant difference between president Donald Trump and his predecessors, it’s not policy. Policies have remained basically the same. It’s really a question of style. Trump is crass, rude, and overtly racist. Yes, tone makes a difference. But does it really matter that much? Not to the rest of the world or to most Americans.
Good Obama / Evil Trump
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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Same-O Same-O
The repugs hated Obummer for doing the same things they loved Bush for doing. The next Dem prez will be loved by the left for doing the same things that they condemn Trump for today.
How can anyone take either party seriously? When party loyalty outweighs the best interests of the country/world everybody loses.
Pop Quiz: Who was the first president to warn us against the two-party system?
That would be George Washington, if memory serves.
Ten points, Alex!
If he could see it a quarter-millenium ago, WTF is wrong with *us*??
D. Trump and G. Washington have so much in common, one can only wonder why one is reviled and the other worshiped.
Racist? Check.
Genocidal maniac? Check.
Misogynist? Check.
Slave owner? Trump fails to pay undocumented workers on his real estate and construction business. I’m giving him a “check” on this until he pays up.
Use of Army without declaration of war? Check. Genocidal Indian wars of conquest.
Emoluments? Whisky and land speculation. Check.
@Glenn – there is one important difference.
At the time G.W. was born, racism & chauvinism were the norm. George was guilty only of believing that which everyone around him believed. (Including many women and blacks.)
Trump was born at a time when we supposedly knew better.
There is a straight line tradition of right wing conservative values from Washington to Trump.
The conservative rule that comes from this conservative Constitution lives on undiminished in today’s conservatives.
This tradition was the intent of the self-described minority of “People” (they who claimed, and continue to claim, to speak FOR the people whose voices they suppress) and who wrote the Constitution, enforced it, and forced their will upon the general population of that day on, until this day and forward.
The Constitution was designed to protect the minority (the wealthy) from the “wicked” desires of democracy, which was equated at that time with anarchy.
At the time Donald Trump was born, racism & chauvinism were the norm also.
If not, what were the civil rights struggles of that time opposed to (with minimal success I might add)?
Why was MLK Jr. considered by the FBI to be a threat to the national security?
@Glenn –
“The Constitution was designed to protect the minority (the wealthy) from the “wicked” desires of democracy”
Can you document that statement? Relevant sources would be the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution itself.
Regardless, you appear to missing an important point. “The Wealthy” weren’t in power – The Nobility were. The phrase “all men are created equal” had nothing to do with race, and everything to do with the assumption that the nobility in general and the King in particular were superior forms of humanity.
Human society progresses in baby steps. The American Revolution made the important step of throwing out the nobles in favor of a more egalitarian society. Please note the word “more” – the society they created wasn’t Utopia, but it was one baby-step closer.
As you mentioned, we’re still not perfect – but we are moving in the right direction. We no longer have slavery, women can vote, and trans people are coming out of the closet. Our grandchildren will live in a better world than our grandparents – we live in the world in between.
Are you willing to be judged as harshly by your descendants? “Oh, sure, that Glenn guy TALKED about global warming – but did he do anything? NO! He drove a car, and he rode a bus and he ate food that was delivered by diesel trucks. He used electric lights! And a computer! He was obviously a disgusting polluter who murdered other people for his own comfort.”
… or would you prefer that they judge you in light of your times? One in which it is damn near impossible to live without a carbon footprint?
@CH
I don’t make a practice of trying to convert people away from their conservatism. I don’t believe a simple concise post will ever overcome decades of indoctrination.
See if Federalist 10 can pique your curiosity.
“So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.
“But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.
“A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it…” speaks to the divide and conquer strategy in use to this day.
These passages foretell the 20 Trillion dollar bailout of the Bankers (a bailout by the “People” and for the “People”) and the millions of “wicked” lesser people driven into bankruptcy by the crimes of these few of the wealthy minority.
I could recommend a few books for you to read, but I don’t think you have a real interest in considering anything that might possibly challenge your belief system.
You, after all, have surrendered to the conservative Democratic Party position that Putin installed Trump into the presidency, thus demonstrating the true believer’s incapacity for doubt.
@Glenn –
When you work so hard at evading my point, you prove it instead.
“You, after all, have surrendered to the conservative Democratic Party position that Putin installed Trump into the presidency”
Would you care to step outside and say that?
At any rate, you’ve got it 100% back-ass-wards. It is YOU who have bought into the duopoly which insists that it’s either Trump or Hillary. Some of us are able to see beyond the simplistic, comic book, black-or-white world view espoused by the media.
SPOILER: It is altogether possible to oppose BOTH Trump and Hillary. It is altogether possible to evaluate each’s actions in a vacuum – totally divorced from any consideration of the other.
But one must give up one’s preconceived notions in order to do so. You should try it someday.
@CH
“At any rate, you’ve got it 100% back-ass-wards. It is YOU who have bought into the duopoly which insists that it’s either Trump or Hillary. Some of us are able to see beyond the simplistic, comic book, black-or-white world view espoused by the media.”
This is a total fiction. You have me confused with someone else.
I know you like to play the joker.
But you make a joke of yourself when you try so hard at it.
So you defend historical conservatives. Why wouldn’t you? You are a conservative Democrat.
Does that piss you off?
Good.
Then you have been played.
For your own sake just don’t punch your computer screen because, believe me, it won’t hurt me a bit if you do.
@Glenn
Gosh, that post would be absolutely devastating if it weren’t for the incontrovertible fact that is it you who is defending a racist, misogynist, fascist pig.
Ergo, you must be a Republican.
I rest my case.
Yes folks, we are entering another season of “identity politics”!
Politics is one of the largest (now) and most profitable industries in the U.S.A. At one time, Americans built machines, theories, and better ways of living. Today we build characters to hold office and do the bidding for those who have paid to create them. There is MORE money spent to create the creatures, make them up, & dress them pretty, then there will ever be to expose their ideas or policies.
Do yourself and all of the rest of us a favor; study whom you might cast your vote. Check their history, their record, and who gives them the most money!
If you only fall for the “marketing”, we are sure to FALL! (Full disclosure: In 2008, I did not do that and I fell for the advertisement. )
Political campaigns are only marketing campaigns.
The winner of any election is the marketing campaign most voted for.
The winner of the marketing campaign drags the imaged candidate behind it into office, where winning marketing campaign’s supporters are rewarded with a monetary windfall.
One president’s “we are the exceptional country” is simply another president’s “they are shithole countries.”
American Exceptionalism:
The belief that no matter how many foreign governments and their elections the US subverts; no matter how many baseless wars devastate no matter how many millions; no matter how many are tortured and imprisoned without cause for no matter how long; no matter how many American minorities populate the extreme lower economic classes and its prisons: The Government of the USA would NEVER do anything so cruel, underhanded and deceptive to its own (white) exceptional people.
To my mind, Glenn, equally intrinsic to the belief in the USA’s «exceptionalism» is the notion that whatever that country’s government does abroad, it is to the benefit of – or at the very least, is intended to be to the benefit of (implementation may not always be perfect) – of the benighted peoples on whom those benevolent policies are practiced. The above has the corollary that those people, benighted as they are, are often less than grateful for the costly efforts on the part of the USA to improve their lot….
Henri
@Glenn – I remember raising a stink after the gangland-style execution of UBL. The supposed “liberals” on Alternet defended it to the teeth.
I remember one guy saying, “It’s not like they’re killing Americans” Four months later, we murdered Anwar al-Awlaki and his sixteen year old son.
Closer to home – cops are shooting unarmed brown people with impunity … it’s not like they’re killing white people.
uh, yeah, right – anyone know where I can get a good price on a bullet-proof vest?
@CH
“I remember raising a stink after the gangland-style execution of UBL. The supposed “liberals” on Alternet defended it to the teeth.”
That’s my recollection too, CH.
If you want to buy a bullet-proof vest you might not want to look in Illinois.
Illinois is trying to pass a law so only the People (upper case P), and the police who “Serve and Protect” the People, have lives worth protecting, leaving the people (lower case p) vulnerable to self-starter crime entrepreneurs and organized crime (government) to improvise self-help for themselves or die.
We might soon have to choose between risking either being killed by a bullet or charged with a felony in Illinois, depending on the type of criminal you encounter.
Ted, did Mr Obama really use a word like «penetration» ? I’d never have thought it….
Henri
Americans cannot acknowledge the congruity of Trumps policies with Obama’s.
Nor can they acknowledge (and so idolize instead of deconstruct) George Washington’s policy congruities with Trump’s.
An extreme denial and intentional blindness to the facts is required by true believers who call out doubters of the Founder’s “love of democracy” as heretics to the political theology of a constitution that guarantees a government of the wealthy minorities, by the wealthy minorities, and for the wealthy minorities, these who are referred to as the “People” with the upper case “P” as opposed to the “people” with the lower case “p”.
The book by Gilens and Page, “Democracy in America?” lays out facts for those who claim to hold opinions formed by facts rather than through indoctrination by propaganda. Of course, only those capable of doubt without psychic degeneration will explore a perspective that may challenge the basis of their own identity.
For the binary-minded all resolves to black and white, so all that is not of the Democratic Party must be of the Republican Party.
With Mercutio, I call for a plague o’ both your houses !…
Henri
+1 Henri!
The Capulet and Montague families make a great analogy for the two embattled political giants whose propaganda wars distract from the damage they do to those who will pay for their wars in blood and treasure, without recourse to a democratic resolution, and who will not call for a declaration of war in their own names, so that the reckless and deceitful can face punishment for their ill-considered votes in elections.