Trump VS. Athletes

[GandALF]

well someone's having fun with this.

[FakeGeekGirl]

I know this is kind of late but I badly need to get this off my chest.

I am usually the last person to say that "I am tired of hearing about X trivial thing when Y serious thing is happening somewhere in the world" ... but ... Sweet Jesus, I was tired of hearing endlessly about the NFL while American citizens were suffering in Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria. I know that's really unfair and people can be worried about more than one thing at once, but the complaining about NFL players refusing to stand was just endless, maybe that's because of the people I follow on Facebook but how does anyone have enough time and energy to complain about something like that for so long?! They didn't piss on the flag. They didn't burn it. They didn't punch veterans in the face. They didn't even sit there scratching themselves while the anthem played. They kneeled in what to me seemed like a perfectly respectful gesture. But good Lord, you'd think it was all three of the former things from the way people carried on.

I was also kind of amused that a lot of people that I would have said their real religion was football actually weren't that devout to it after all.

[The Romulan Republic]

That's probably deliberate. The Trumpers would rather have people all riled up over athletes "disrespecting the flag" than focussing on how their Fuhrer is letting Americans die in Puerto Rico.

[Admiral X]

Is he? From what I've seen, aid has been sent to PR, but there seem to be problems with the local government in distributing it. I'd definitely agree that tossing paper towels like some kind of prize is laughable, though.

[The Romulan Republic]

Certainly it appears that the level of aid being received is inadequate. Trump got a lot of criticism for the delay in waiving certain shipping regulations to allow more aid to reach Puerto Rico at less cost (said regulations were waived for the hurricanes that hit the US mainland, and were eventually waived for Puerto Rico as well, but only after several days' delay and public outcry, IIRC).

That, and Trump's whole response comes off as insulting and callous, as usual. On the one hand, he does self-aggrandizing photo ops tossing paper towels and dedicates a fucking gold trophy to hurricane victims. On the other, he takes the opportunity to insult Puerto Rico, attacking it over the island's financial problems, and goes after a local official for daring to criticize his response. In short, he's not acting Presidential: he's acting, as usual, like Donald Trump- a thin-skinned ego maniac who thinks its all about him, even when Americans are suffering and dying.

[LittleRaven]

In fairness to Trump, Puerto Rico would have represented an enormous challenge even to a competent administration. It's an island, with a very outdated transportation and power grid, and it has notoriously lax building codes in many places, magnifying the destruction.

But of course, Trump doesn't have a competent administration, and he himself is a buffoon, so yeah...it's a total cluster****.

[Karha of Honor]

Certainly it appears that the level of aid being received is inadequate. Trump got a lot of criticism for the delay in waiving certain shipping regulations to allow more aid to reach Puerto Rico at less cost (said regulations were waived for the hurricanes that hit the US mainland, and were eventually waived for Puerto Rico as well, but only after several days' delay and public outcry, IIRC).

That, and Trump's whole response comes off as insulting and callous, as usual. On the one hand, he does self-aggrandizing photo ops tossing paper towels and dedicates a fucking gold trophy to hurricane victims. On the other, he takes the opportunity to insult Puerto Rico, attacking it over the island's financial problems, and goes after a local official for daring to criticize his response. In short, he's not acting Presidential: he's acting, as usual, like Donald Trump- a thin-skinned ego maniac who thinks its all about him, even when Americans are suffering and dying.

if Trump would magically turn into a good person how would he be treated? I assume the press would treat him like Ron Paul was treated at beginning of his 2008 run. Some journalist need to swich jobs for the sanity of the USA. You guys are not really giving him incentives to be a good person.

[LittleRaven]

By the time someone has become President of the United States, they should possess enough self-discipline to not require 'incentives' to be a good person.

[Karha of Honor]

By the time someone has become President of the United States, they should possess enough self-discipline to not require 'incentives' to be a good person.

Presidents are good people.

[The Romulan Republic]

Certainly it appears that the level of aid being received is inadequate. Trump got a lot of criticism for the delay in waiving certain shipping regulations to allow more aid to reach Puerto Rico at less cost (said regulations were waived for the hurricanes that hit the US mainland, and were eventually waived for Puerto Rico as well, but only after several days' delay and public outcry, IIRC).

That, and Trump's whole response comes off as insulting and callous, as usual. On the one hand, he does self-aggrandizing photo ops tossing paper towels and dedicates a fucking gold trophy to hurricane victims. On the other, he takes the opportunity to insult Puerto Rico, attacking it over the island's financial problems, and goes after a local official for daring to criticize his response. In short, he's not acting Presidential: he's acting, as usual, like Donald Trump- a thin-skinned ego maniac who thinks its all about him, even when Americans are suffering and dying.

if Trump would magically turn into a good person how would he be treated? I assume the press would treat him like Ron Paul was treated at beginning of his 2008 run. Some journalist need to swich jobs for the sanity of the USA. You guys are not really giving him incentives to be a good person.

Yeah, its just the fault of that mean old fake news media out to get Trump. I mean, you're basically repeating the White House narrative against the free press here.

If someone somehow transplanted a conscience into Donald Trump... I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, he'd have to actually change his behavior and make it last for a while before I'd buy that it was anything but an act. Because Trump often makes token, short-lived gestures towards being Presidential and bi-partisan, only to revert to form within a few days. His constant self-contradiction is part of the Trump con, part of his administration's attack on truth and objectivity, which makes it so hard to form a coherent opposition argument against him.

And even if he did turn over a new leaf, it wouldn't absolve him of past actions. I would still regard his Presidency as likely illegitimate, due to the Russian scandal.

In fact, probably one of the main things that he'd have to do to convince me that he'd turned over a new leaf is... resign.

By the time someone has become President of the United States, they should possess enough self-discipline to not require 'incentives' to be a good person.

Also this.

By the time someone has become President of the United States, they should possess enough self-discipline to not require 'incentives' to be a good person.

Presidents are good people.

The fact that it is dismissed as self-evidently ludicrous that a President could ever be a decent person is... truly terrible. Its simply another example of the unspeakably dangerous false equivalency narrative, that all politicians are equally corrupt- a fallacy adopted by those who mistake cynicism and apathy for sophistication, and co-opted by those who want to normalize the worst aspects of politics by placing them on an equal footing with the best. And is made all the more insidious by the fact that it has the superficial appearance of being "fair" and non-partisan.

When it becomes accepted as a self-evident truth that all leaders are corrupt, then the logical implication of that is that we should stop trying to make things better. That it doesn't matter who you vote for, so why participate at all? That reform is either impossible, or can only come through wholesale destruction of the system.

It is an argument that, by substituting a pat generalization for actual analysis, stifles meaningful political discourse and encourages people towards either apathetic acceptance of tyranny, or towards violent extremism.

It is, in short, an overtly anti-democracy narrative.

What does repeating it serve, except to let you feel cleverer than us fools who actually believe in things? Or to defend a man like Donald Trump by pretending that his despicable behavior is somehow normal?