President Obama says Donald Trump is a dangerous man. But what about him? He murders people by remote control. He plots assassinations. He tortures. He kidnaps. He spies on everyone. How much worse could Trump be than him?
That Man Is Dangerous
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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«How much worse could Trump be than [he ; i e, Obama] ?» I hate to have to say this, Ted, but both Donald John Trump – and not least, Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton – could turn out to be a lot worse than Barack Hussein Obama. As long as one human remains alive on this planet, there’s still someone to kill….
Henri
I just don’t see how the Democratic Party can become an opposition party to the Republican Party instead of a collaborator with it, as they are wont to do.
Democrats Clinton and Obama are the more effective evil by means of style.
In the event of a Trump win, will the more effective evil, following their inevitable alignment with Trump, be able to avoid becoming as apparently evil as Trump, thus damaging their brand?
Will the Democrats be able to maintain their style of “All my means are sane” in faking their opposition to the apparent Trumpian insanity, and yet still support the duopoly’s mad motives and objects, as they did under W. Bush?
Can the Democrats maintain their brand and remain the more effective evil under a Trump administration?
I suspect they will, in the eyes of their true believers, by faking filibuster defeats and playing victim as they did under W. Bush.
When will they ever learn?
«I just don’t see how the Democratic Party can become an opposition party to the Republican Party instead of a collaborator with it, …» Depends upon what one means by «the Democratic Party» ; if one means the DNC and most of the party’s politicians, they’ve hardly exhibited any inclination to make the party an opposition party to the neoliberal and neocon consensus. There are, of course, members of the party (or who caucus with them), like Mr Sanders and Gwendolynne Sophia Moore who do represent an opposition to the consensus, but they are hardly representative for the party’s higher echelons….
Henri
The Democratic Party is the place where social movements go to die.
A small peppering of the likes of Sanders will not alter the direction of the herd.
“[T]hey are hardly representative for the party’s higher echelons….” And therein lies the problem.
«The Democratic Party is the place where social movements go to die.» Indeed, which just goes to show that the Democratic Party maintains its raison d’être in US political life. Of course, if that two-party oligopoly over political power in the United States could be broken, social movements might just be able to carve out a different fate….
Henri
Close, but the Republicans collaborate with the Democrats…
@ Jack
Collaboration is a two way street.
On another issue:
Trump would be more in tune with his party if only he could learn to “dog whistle”.
That’s all he really lacks to qualify for party acceptance.
For example:
Don’t be overtly racist.
Follow the lead of the “Great Communicator” Ronald Reagan and do as he did by announcing his candidacy in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Trump must have faith, as Reagan did, in his fellow racist’s ability to pick up the symbolism of starting a campaign where civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were killed.
«Trump would be more in tune with his party if only he could learn to “dog whistle”.
That’s all he really lacks to qualify for party acceptance.»
Well, Glenn, Donald John hasn’t precisely built his campaign on subtlety, which some might find refreshing after the «dog whistling» so characteristic of politicians ever since Reconstruction days….
The problem with Mr Trump’s more «direct» speech is that he appears to change position from one moment to the next, so voters can’t know what they’ll get if they choose him. This in distinction to the case with Ms Clinton, in which any voter who cares to investigate her record can gain a rather good idea of what to expect. Vestigia terrent !….
Henri
How much more dangerous could Trump be than Obama? Every President up to now has had some understanding and reverence for the American constitutional form of government; Trump has none. I’m personally convinced that once (God forbid) he became President, he’ll declare martial law (citing Lincoln as a precedent) and make himself dictator for life, in effect nullifying the Constitution and ending the American Republic and creating an American plutocracy (a la the Roman Republic crumbling under its incompetence and morphing to the Empire). How’s that for being more dangerous?
> Every President up to now has had some understanding and reverence for the American constitutional form of government;
Not really – Bush & Obomber come to mind, as does Nixon with his famous observation, “If the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.”
Although Obomber arguably had/has an *understanding* of that document, his reverence is not in evidence.
«I’m personally convinced that once (God forbid) he became President, he’ll declare martial law (citing Lincoln as a precedent) and make himself dictator for life, in effect nullifying the Constitution and ending the American Republic and creating an American plutocracy (a la the Roman Republic crumbling under its incompetence and morphing to the Empire).» Well, if you are «personally convinced», Zetetikos, it would surely require more powerful argumentation than I could bring to bear to «unconvince» you, but seeker that you are, you must certainly have found some evidence to back your claim – would you care to adduce any ? Not that Mr Trump – or for that matter, Ms Clinton – is utterly devoid of elements of Caesarism, but somehow I can’t see either one of them pulling a repeat of the German plebiscite of 19 August 1934. Why should they ? Both seem quite capable of preparing for and unleashing a major war with China and Russia without changing the forms of government (which surely are more those of an Empire than of a Republic ?) inherited from Mr Obama and his predecessors….
Henri
The New York Times has been saying (and most readers agree) that Secretary Clinton is the only person alive qualified to be President of the US, and Sanders and Trump are being unpatriotic and disloyal to run against her.
And now Trump’s numbers have fallen off a cliff.
Every politician’s first job is to get nominated, and Trump managed with about 1/3 of primary and caucus voters, about like McGovern in ’72. The second job is to get a majority, or at least a very large plurality of voters, and, instead of doing this, Trump is playing to WASP men and (apparently intentionally) alienating everyone else. Many Republican leaders (PJ O Rourke et al) are saying, ‘Vote Republican. Vote for Hillary!’
Fivethirtyeight notes that Trump has no chance of being elected, and that there is no way the Republican leaders can convince the Convention to nominate anyone else, so our next president will be Billary.
Billary’s anti-Trump ads are incredibly effective: he’ll definitely start a nuclear war. Billary is running the same ad Johnson used so effectively against Goldwater.
Meanwhile, Obama backed down from sending the US Army into Syria, but Secretary Clinton has promised to remove the evil dictator who killed 300,000 peaceful, innocent, unarmed protestors, thousands with poison gas.
Meanwhile, Putin has promised that he will not let anyone overthrow the legitimate government of Syria that has seen 300,000 innocent Syrian civilians and the law enforcement officers trying to protect them murdered by jihadists, 10,000 released from Camp Bucca in ’08 and ’09, plus many more from Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Obviously, only those people who listen to the Lord Haw Haws on RT and believe them would accept Putin’s lies. Or the lies of Seymour Hersh. Just because the RT and Hersh versions– unlike the official US government version–are internally consistent and fit the external facts that can be checked does NOT change the fact that, ever since George Washington, the President of the US has always told the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth, because the US is a democracy, not a dictatorship. (I can’t see the logic in that, but what do I know?) And the statements of the US Presdient are NOT subject to Aristotelian logic. Aristotle is dead, and the current US president (whomever that is) is alive.
So we’re lucky our next president will be Billary. Trump probably doesn’t even know how to use the button, while Billary does, and will need to use it to keep the US safe from the dictators of Syria, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China.
«Billary’s anti-Trump ads are incredibly effective: he’ll definitely start a nuclear war. Billary is running the same ad Johnson used so effectively against Goldwater.» As a «Goldwater girl» back in the day, it seems only meet that Ms Clinton should use such adds against her rival…. 😉
Henri
“Billary is running the same ad Johnson used so effectively against Goldwater.”
Then Johnson escalated Vietnam on lies, dug himself a hole, and declined to run again, tossing the mess to Nixon for his turn to screw with the young people.
That’s where I learned to hate the Ds and Rs and distrust them deeply after the the hate cooled.
«That’s where I learned to hate the Ds and Rs and distrust them deeply after the the hate cooled.» History’s a bitch, but what she tells us is that (the leadership of) both these parties are loyal, if corrupt, servants of the people running the US. Your distrust, Glenn is entirely merited, but where do you people in the United States – and we in the rest of the world, whose fate is so dependent upon what your leaders do – go from here ? That, to echo a Danish prince, is the question….
Henri
Henri –
My post was a gut reaction to Rall’s cartoon depicting Obama as a trigger-happy authoritarian and asking what could be worse than that; it was not meant as a researched political analysis of the type you’d find in The Nation or National Review.
Your response seems primarily an objection to my use of ‘personal conviction’, which I use in the sense of ‘gut feeling’. I’ve had ‘personal convinctions’ in the past that turned out to be wrong (I was personally convinced that Reagan was going to start a nuclear war with the Evil Empire, for example), and I’d be more than happy if this one about Trump turns out to be wrong.
A more considered post might go as follows: I have long seen an analogy between the collapse of the Roman Republic under the stresses of managing its Empire and the current situation of the American Republic struggling to manage its economic empire; will it similarly collapse and be replaced by a more authoritarian system? Is Trump going to be the American Augustus?
You seem to imply that the American Constitutional system of government fits more that of an empire that of a republic. I’d be interested in hearing an argument in support of that thesis.
I have no problem accepting «gut feeling» as a synonym to «personal conviction», Zetetikos, and as you point out, such feelings/convictions can be wrong. My comment dealt not so much with term you choose, but rather was intended as a request for you to provide some evidence which would allow those of us who do not necessarily share your gut or your convictions, to follow them…,
As you also point out, it is possible to draw «an analogy between the collapse of the Roman Republic under the stresses of managing its Empire and the current situation of the American Republic struggling to manage its economic empire» (allow me to note here that the US empire, while no doubt (and like its Roman counterpart), economic in nature, it rests upon a solid military basis, with US troops stationed at approximately 1000 bases outside the country’s own territory). But that is not the same thing as saying that the façade of so-called «Constitutional government» cannot be maintained, no matter whether Ms Clinton or Mr Trump becomes president ; after all, it has been upheld for more than seventy years since WW II (during which the United States has been engaged in more or less continual wars, with nary a declaration of war from the Congress, in accordance with the stipulation of Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution), and there seems to be no reason – save one, which I shall adumbrate below – why it cannot continue. If one can have serial monogamy, one can certainly also have serial Caesarism….
The one element which adds instability to the mix ? The adventurous military policies – and by that I mean military policies still more fraught with danger than those adopted by Mr Obama – that Ms Clinton, given her record, is almost certain to adopt should, which Heaven forfend, she manage to grasp the brass ring, and which are also likely in the case if is Mr Trump who wins the prize (given his lack of a record as a politician and his inconsistencies, predicting his actions if even more difficult than predicting those Barack Hussein Obama, for example, would follow on the basis of what he said while on the campaign trail in 2008, although admittedly everything did become quite clear when we saw the cabinet line-up he picked for his first administration)….
Henri
Well put, Henri
Thankee kindly, Glenn…. 🙂
Henri
As for “The New York Times has been saying (and most readers agree) that Secretary Clinton is the only person alive qualified to be President of the US, and Sanders and Trump are being unpatriotic and disloyal to run against her.”
It’s the New York Times. They couldn’t even spot that one of their reporters was plagiarizing, EVEN after one of their own editors warned them. These are the same people who let Judith Miller cheerlead the country into the war
Hillary Clinton’s “record” has been abysmal. Forget the flip-flopping. Forget the taint of corruption that runs through the entirety of her public service career. Forget that she has the charisma of a piece of string. She’s no goddamn good at what she does. Everything she touches turns to mediocre (at best) shit. And what do you think will happen when she “confronts” the people Wall Street gives her the permission to confront? Do you really think some sheik from Saudi Arabia (the world’s largest women’s prison according to one Saudi woman) is going to listen to Hillary as an equal? Do you really think he will be allowed to agree with her? Even if he wants to?
Trump may not be qualified. But I know Hillary Clinton is not. Trump’s so simple, the other side might make concessions because they’ll realize, he’s completely off his nut. Trump could actually achieve peace in the Middle East. “Finally, something both the Jews and the Palestinians can agree upon: Trump is insane. So we accept the two-state solution.”
«Trump’s so simple, the other side might make concessions because they’ll realize, he’s completely off his nut. Trump could actually achieve peace in the Middle East. “Finally, something both the Jews and the Palestinians can agree upon: Trump is insane. So we accept the two-state solution.”»
Cf : Nixon’s so-called «Madmen theory» : «I call it the Madman Theory, Bob [i e, Harry Robbins Haldeman]. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that, “for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can’t restrain him when he’s angry—and he has his hand on the nuclear button” and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.»
Trump as the new Nixon ? Can’t wait for : «When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal»….
And then we have Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás : «Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it»….
Henri