Dumb Donald has been outdoing himself lately…Let me count the ways! Dumb Donald has been rebuking our European allies, with reports he was “grumpy” on his visit. Dumb Donald missed a ceremony commemorating our fallen heroes from WWI, which all the other leaders among our allies were there marching together in solidarity. Dumb Donald appointed an unqualified & corrupt acting AG to run the DOJ. Dumb Donald berated the forest service in California with false accusations. Dumb Donald is complaining about voter fraud in the southeastern states, another false accusation. Dumb Donald is accusing Dems of harassment for wanting to investigate his crimes, while tying that into the stock market struggles (absurd). Dumb Donald is willing to spend hundreds of millions on troops at the border against desperate migrants, who are basically not much of a security threat. And Dumb Donald also wants funding for that dumb wall or he threatens to shut down the government. Dumb Donald is chewing out (& banning) reporters for asking tough questions, which are legitimate questions. Dumb Donald has let the North Korean dictator play him like a fiddle. And all this is just this past week! And he is our U.S. President? Ouch! Bottom line is, dumb Donald is just full of lies & distortions: morning-bits-excuses-excuses.
Enabling Despot Strongmen
Since Trump wants to be one of them! Our autocratic-minded president has obviously helped fueled this dangerous trend, seen inside understanding-different-types-strongmen & also in excerpts from us-democracy-countries-global-authoritarian:
The United States is fighting for the soul of its democracy. While the hateful agenda of Donald Trump was dealt a rebuke in the midterm elections, in a deeply polarized country, the struggle for democracy will only intensify as Trump and his allies attempt to pull America down a dangerous path. The president spouts racist conspiracy theories – which have been used as justification for the mass slaughter of Jews in a synagogue and which appear to have inspired the attempted assassination of Democratic party leaders – with impunity. The president said the US military should shoot at asylum-seeking refugees at the southern border. He attacks the media as the “enemy of the people”. And all this was just in the past month. But the United States isn’t alone – democracies across the world are struggling for their survival. Hungarian president Viktor Orban has launched systematic attacks on his country’s democratic institutions. President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has led a campaign of extrajudicial killings of drug users and sellers. Brazil elected as president Jair Bolsonaro, who has defended Brazil’s former dictatorship and espouses hate against women, the LGBTQ community, and others. Whether driven by nationalism, racism, fear of immigration, or other forces, populist movements can be contagious.
While the United States struggles to revitalize its own democracy, it cannot ignore this global trend of democratic backsliding. To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., a threat to democracy anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere. The last time America ignored massive democratic backsliding abroad, the second world war exploded and dragged America into its horrors. Though it cannot begin in earnest until Trump leaves office, America must adopt a new foreign policy focused on defending and expanding the ranks of democracies around the world. This will require re-orienting assistance to democracies, finding more effective ways to support democratic movements abroad, and other efforts such as those outlined in a new report by me and my colleagues at the Center for American Progress. And since the notion of “democracy promotion” has been confused with the Iraq war and regime change, let’s be clear: This policy is not about transforming autocracies into democracies, fostering violent revolutions, or imposing democracy by force; it is about helping democracies succeed and pushing back against autocratic encroachments on democracy.
At the core of this effort must be building a robust infrastructure for democracies to unite to protect their own democratic systems and push back against autocracy. The skeleton of this system already exists: The European Union is built on democratic principles; the G7 knits together some of the world’s richest democracies to tackle challenges such as poverty and climate change; and the Community of Democracies (CD) convenes democracies to share lessons learned about strengthening democracy. Today, the United States must lead a global effort to stitch together the best parts of these structures into a robust democracy organization. Supporting democracy abroad, of course, is not new. But today, the need is as great as ever. This will be a generational effort. One or two elections at home or abroad will not signal victory or defeat. And for America, it will hinge in part on whether or not America can emerge from its current struggles as a stronger democracy. But for democracy to survive, democracies around the world must band together.
Prez acting as an Enemy to our Democratic Institutions
Inside trump-whitaker-press-attacks-midterms seen in excerpts here are a good read:
In the three days after the Democrats captured the House, President Trump fired his attorney general and replaced him with a loyalist critical of both the courts and the Russia investigation. He banned a CNN correspondent from the White House, while threatening he would do the same to other journalists. And he accused election officials in Florida and Arizona of rigging the vote against candidates he had campaigned for. It was a remarkable assault on the nation’s institutions, even by a president who has gleefully taken a hammer to the press, to judges and prosecutors he does not like, and to an electoral process he has denounced as fraudulent since the day he took office. Mr. Trump’s actions suggested a president lashing out after a midterm election loss that he had initially cast as a victory. Now he is girding for battle with a newly empowered Democratic opposition — one armed with subpoena power and a long list of questions about his conduct in office and ties to Russia — and it has brought out a fresh aggressiveness in him.
While each of his actions rattled Washington, Mr. Trump’s appointment of Matthew G. Whitaker as the acting attorney general, replacing the ousted Jeff Sessions, raised the thorniest ethical and legal questions, according to lawyers and former Justice Department officials. Mr. Whitaker’s radical legal views; public disparagement of the Russia investigation, which he now oversees; connections to a Florida company shut down after fraud allegations; and lack of Senate confirmation each make him a dubious choice to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. Together, critics say, they make him a threat not just to the work of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, but also to the rule of law more broadly. “Whatever the right answer to the particular ethical and legal issues might be, we should not lose sight of the larger question of whether this is an effort to undermine the system of justice,” said Walter E. Dellinger III, who served as acting solicitor general in the Clinton administration.
It demonstrates, they said, that Mr. Trump still views lawyers — even those at the top of the Justice Department — as advocates for his own interests. Mr. Whitaker’s reservations about Marbury v. Madison, the landmark 1803 ruling that enshrines the Supreme Court’s right to review executive and legislative actions and declare them unconstitutional, could jeopardize the status of the judiciary as an equal branch of government, according to legal scholars. To hold a view so far outside the legal mainstream, they said, raised questions about how Mr. Whitaker would handle momentous issues, like the role of the courts or the fate of the Mueller investigation. But it could also corrode the day-to-day work of the Justice Department, which affects millions of Americans. “Attorneys general make decisions every day,” said John R. Schmidt, who served as associate attorney general during the Clinton administration. “To have someone there who isn’t really capable of making reliable decisions is not trivial for the Trump administration.”
Attack on First Amendment
Trump has continually attacked a free press. When a CNN reporter was barred from the White House, the network tried to work it out: cnn-tried-to-make-peace-before-suing-trump-over-jim-acosta. But enough was enough, so they had to take stronger actions: cnn-sues-trump-admin-over-pulling-acostas-press-pass. And CNN does have a very strong case: cnn-win-lawsuit-jim-acostas.
Real Americans!
Another excellent read which calls out Fox fake news, where Rubin chimes in on just who are the real Americans, posted here from the-real-real-america:
For years, Fox News and the right-wing echo chamber told audiences that “elites” didn’t get “real America.” They’d point to Hollywood stars or progressive politicians, declaring they were out-of-touch with the woes of white, non-college-educated people in small towns and rural locales. White, upper-middle-class conservatives went along for the ride, happy to swipe at liberal media, academia and activist courts. Elites did them wrong, the guys in the Rust Belt diner told countless reporters (those same “elites,” who seemed so willing to transcribe their complaints). Immigrants were stealing their jobs. (Well, actually there were hardly any immigrants in places most of the viewers lived, and Fox News’s upscale viewers had fine jobs.) The North American Free Trade Agreement stole their jobs, although unemployment rates were falling. Christianity was under attack, although churches and church groups flourished in their neighborhoods. Everyone else — immigrants, journalists, city dwellers, scientists, government workers, college-educated Americans — were somehow part of the elite cabal, out to destroy their way of life.
In fact, we’re all part of “real America.” The victims and the neighborhood that comforted the victims in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill are real Americans. The college-educated women who marched the day after the inauguration and then signed up to help on a campaign or even ran for office themselves are real Americans. The immigrant who runs the corner grocery store, the non-churchgoers, the service workers in big cities, the environmental scientists working to develop alternatives to fossil fuels, the office workers who walk into state and government offices all over the country to help their fellow citizens, the parents of kids who are now scarily sophisticated about mass shootings, and others of every race and ethnicity are all real Americans.
These real Americans, who don’t watch hours of Fox News, figured out long ago that Trump is a pathological liar. They recoil at his overt racism, know dictators always go after the free press, understand basic science, know Russia and Saudi Arabia are run by despots, don’t see Canada as our enemy, recognize that crime is at historically low levels and know actual immigrants personally. What’s more, they vote, and they outnumber the Trump-faithful. For over two years, Trump and his Fox News helpmates have perpetrated the fraud that only they are the voice of “the people.” That’s what authoritarian regimes and their followers always say. Trump spent two years talking almost exclusively to and for his core group. Sure enough, he can get them out to vote in Missouri, Indiana and North Carolina. But they aren’t a majority of voters nationwide; not even close. His demagoguery, lies, cruelty and incompetence — what his supporters ignore or even relish (he’s our liar!) — the majority, a large majority, of equally real Americans despises.
The 2018 midterm elections are a reminder that presidents and parties have to talk to the whole country. The midterms are also a lesson that victimology only goes so far. There are true victims in America — opioid addicts, gun victims, sexual assault survivors, cancer patients, victims of police misconduct, children without stable homes. The 70-year-old white male in the top 10 percent of income earners isn’t a victim, no matter what Sean Hannity tells him. You’re not a victim if someone tells you “Happy Holidays” or you hear a “Press 2 for Spanish” option on the phone. You’re not a victim if more and more Americans don’t “look like you”; looking like you has never been a qualification for citizenship. You’re not a victim if gays marry or transgender kids get to use the restroom of their choice at school. The price of living — the requirement of living — in a diverse democracy is tolerance, self-discipline, civility and a minimal amount of civic comprehension. If Tuesday was about anything, it was a restatement that no American is more real than another. Yes, the majority of Americans are decent, tolerant, fair-minded people, and no one should sink into self-pity and grievance based on their inability to dominate the culture, economy and politics. We are all in this together; we deserve leaders who understand that.
He Makes Lots of Enemies
His ego demands total loyalty, another classic sign of a wanna-be dictator. But it’s no way to lead a democracy, as seen in excerpts from for-donald-trump-there-are-sycophants-and-enemies-and-no-in-between:
Midterm losses for an incumbent president are almost inevitable. But if you’re looking for someone to blame for the Republican Party’s showing on Tuesday, it’s Donald Trump. And if you want to understand what makes him tick, just consider his behavior the first 24 hours after his party lost control of the House, but performed well in the Senate. Whether he was feeling cornered and defensive about the losses, or emboldened by his Senate victories, the real Donald Trump was on full display Wednesday. It was manifested through his unchivalrous comments about losing Republican candidates, his firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and the confrontation with CNN’s Jim Acosta.
In Trump’s world, loyalty is absolute and flows in one direction. This is not new. “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty,” he told then-FBI Director James Comey. In other words: get with the program—comply—or pay the price. Trump’s demands for strict conformity even extend to the media. Most normal presidents expect an adversarial, or even contentious, press corps. And Trump, for better or worse, has had his. What presidents do not do is ban reporters from major news outlets. What presidents do not do is call reporters the “enemy of the people.”
Again, though, this all fits his pattern. In Trump’s mind, there are good people and bad people. Good people do what Trump wants. Bad people are demonized, accused of betrayal, or otherized. In some cases, people who end up on the wrong side of a confrontation with Trump just fade away (see Jeff Flake). In other cases, they are defeated (see Mark Sanford). In the worst cases, his uncivil rhetoric and Manichean framing seem to be inspire uncivil behavior from both his supporters and opponents. And it’s worth wondering how much of this is simply in service of preserving the president’s fragile ego. C.S. Lewis once wrote that, “We must picture hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives with the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance and resentment.” Welcome to Trump’s America.
The Truth is not in them
Most Americans who are alive, conscious & have the ability to think for themselves can easily recognize the parade of lies coming from Trump & his echo. But there are many on the far-right who’ve sold out to their cultish tribe, allowing Trump & his echo to do all the thinking for them, filling their minds with all manner of contrived nonsense. Inside their alternate universe they’ve gone almost entirely fact-free: conservatives-have-gone-fully-fact-free-so-how-the-heck-do-we-even-talk-to-them. These excerpts here are found inside truth-and-virtue-in-the-age-of-trump:
About truth: Trump, of course, lies a lot — in the run-up to the midterms he was lying in public more than 100 times each week. But his assault on truth goes deeper than the frequency of his lies, because Trump and his allies don’t accept the very notion of objective facts. “Fake news” doesn’t mean actual false reporting; it means any report that hurts Trump, no matter how solidly verified. And conversely, any assertion that helps Trump, whether it’s about job creation or votes, is true precisely because it helps him. The same worldview explains Republicans’ addiction to conspiracy theories. After all, if people keep insisting on the truth of something that hurts their party, it can’t be out of respect for the facts — because in their world, there are no neutral facts.
Anyway, my point is that the rejection of any standard besides whether it helps or hurts Trump extends beyond true or false to basic values. In Trumpworld, which is now indistinguishable from G.O.P.world, good and bad are defined solely by whether the interests of The Leader are served. Thus, Trump attacks and insults our closest allies while praising brutal dictators who flatter him (and declares neo-Nazis “very fine people”).
And the same goes for heroism and cowardice. A genuine hero like John McCain, who was critical of Trump, gets dismissed as a failure: “He’s not a war hero. … I like people who weren’t captured.” Meanwhile, Miriam Adelson, whose service to the nation basically consists of giving Trump campaign contributions, gets the Presidential Medal of Freedom.What all of this means is that what’s going on in America right now isn’t politics as usual. It’s much more existential than that. You have to be truly delusional to see the Republicans’ response to their party’s midterm setback as anything but an attempted power grab by a would-be authoritarian movement, which rejects any opposition or even criticism as illegitimate. Our democracy is still very much in danger.
Has He Gone Loopy?
Here’s a legitimate question about Trump’s mental state: trump-cog-decline. It does appear he is cracking: trump-is-cracking. And of course he’s a racist: republican-denial-trumps-racism-absurd. The next link sees one of our nation’s highest awards being defiled by the prez for corrupt purposes: trumps-blatantly-political-use-pardons-medals-freedom. Sane GOP leaders are secretly longing to escape the cult: large-parts-of-gop-establishment-want-to-distance-themselves, but for now are too fearful of their rabid base & corrupted messaging-echo. The new GOP has become a contagious disease which must be eradicated in order to cure America, as it’s hard to believe a party defined by lies, trickery, backstabbing & corruption can be sustained: republicans-your-moment-of-judgment-is-coming-fast.
There is None Like Trump
And what Trump & his echo claim is “harassment” when Dems try to rein in a lawless presidency, what the Dems are really doing as they plan to call in witnesses in January as they take over the House, is to protect the rule of law. And from what we’ve seen of the prez, again I say a racist he is: cnns-kirsten-powers-on-trumps-latest-media-attacks-this-is-classic-white. More thoughts on our corrupt/lawless president are seen in excerpts from s-e-cupp-history-is-replete-with-greedy-and-craven-presidents-but-none-have-attacked-rule-of-law-like-trump:
On Saturday, CNN’s S.E. Cupp opened up her show with a scathing indictment of President Donald Trump‘s recent actions. “In a matter of one week, the president has attacked the rule of law and the Constitution on no less than three fronts — The independence of the Department of Justice, the First Amendment, freedom of the free press, and the 14th amendment,” Cupp said. She then pointed out that — lest people complain — her criticism has not been lobbied at Trump alone.
Now, lest you say, but, S.E., you didn’t care when [Barack] Obama threatened the press. Oh, yeah, I did. Plenty of us were critical of the 44th president for seizing phone and e-mail records of reporters from the A.P. and The New York Times and Fox News reporter James Rosenand of course other presidents were guilty of constitutional overreach,” she stressed. She then gave a laundry list of historical presidential bad acts from Lyndon B. Johnson stuffing a ballot box in Texas to Richard Nixon‘s Saturday night massacre.
While history is replete with greedy and craven presidents who try to expand executive power and undermine the Constitution, none has attacked the rule of law and the Constitution on so many fronts at the same time. And we haven’t even gotten to the latest allegations of campaign finance violations by Trump,” Cupp said before concluding by asking “how strong is our republic” in the face of the most recent Trump-inflicted threats.
Let’s Hope Fox is in for a Crackup!
Since many of their hosts are crackpots! The fall of Fox could pave the way for a sane conservative network to emerge. See this post from will-fox-news-survive-as-a-house-united-a-look-at-the-cable-networks-ongoing-drama-in-the-trump-era:
This was supposed to be Fox News’s star turn — the big day for its journalists. Instead, the previous 24 hours had exposed the spreading fissures at Fox News, which is in the midst of its own version of a civil war, pitting its news anchors against its big-name pundits, who are avid promoters of President Trump. Baier, who has been at Fox for 21 years, says he approaches every day “with horse blinders on.” “I don’t spend a lot of time analyzing what the opinion shows are doing,” he adds, but it was impossible to ignore Sean Hannity’s guest appearance at President Trump’s final midterm-elections rally in Missouri. Before the rally, Hannity had said he would only be interviewing Trump and wouldn’t appear on stage. But after the interview, Hannity did exactly what he said he was not going to do, which was jump onstage, hug Trump, repeat his campaign talking points, and then high-five former Fox News executive Bill Shine, who is now the White House deputy chief of staff in charge of communications. Hannity later said Trump’s invitation to join him on stage was unexpected, which many at the channel disbelieved. “You know he’s lying through his teeth, right?” said one current Fox News staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly. Hannity maintained on his show after election night that “he had no idea” that the president was going to invite him up there.
Hannity’s decision to bound up on stage effectively made him a part of the Trump campaign and further wed the channel and the president. And, like any married couple, Fox News and the White House have started to resemble one another. The West Wing contains various factions; so does Fox. Baier and MacCallum are like Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, projecting a reasonable mien and moderate opinions, while Hannity and others lean toward the extremes. The divide inside Fox had been on display in the weeks leading up to the midterm elections. Parroting Trump’s hyped-up rhetoric of a dangerous and imminent migrant “invasion,” Jeanine Pirro, Brian Kilmeade and other Fox contributors imagined the migrants wandering through Mexico as a group preparing to charge the border and bringing diseases, wife beaters and maybe even pedophiles to the United States. It fell to Shepard Smith, Fox’s chief news anchor, to level with viewers at the end of October that the migrants, if they arrived at the U.S. border at all, were two months away. “There is no invasion. No one is coming to get you,” he soberly told the camera. “There is nothing at all to worry about.”
It’s hard to know how Ailes, who was ousted in 2016 in a sexual harassment scandal and who died in 2017, would have handled Trump and Hannity’s bond. When he was alive, Ailes gave Trump a platform as a birther conspiracy theorist on “Fox & Friends” but didn’t like Trump as a political candidate, former associates say. Ailes did not want a single individual in the GOP to dictate Fox News’s coverage; he wanted to run the GOP. Some former Fox News executives see the network’s alignment with Trump, as well as its inability to control Hannity, as a sign of how Ailes managed to keep major stars in line. “When I left Fox, nobody inside there liked Trump,” said Eric Bolling, former co-host of the Fox News show “The Five.” “Now, look at it. Everyone is falling into line.” The pro-Trump posture of Fox News alienated some contributors. Ralph Peters, a longtime military analyst for the channel, severed his association with Fox months ago and said in an interview that the network divides itself into three categories: the true believers who see Trump as “the new messiah;” the cable news opportunists, who have fallen into line; and the respectable hosts who are “disgusted by what goes on there.” But the distinction between opinion and programming hosts is meaningless these days, he says: “It’s like saying, ‘I’m only a prostitute from noon to midnight.’ ”
As for Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, they were “disappointed and felt strongly about reassuring the journalists at Fox News” that what Hannity did “is not acceptable,” according to a person close to them. Disappointed or not, the Murdochs and Fox News are at the mercy of Trump and Hannity, at least for now. “They’re willing to support Sean in the short term but Sean’s key to survival now is the connection to the Trump base and voter,” said a Trump administration official close to the network. Lachlan Murdoch recently said that he wasn’t embarrassed by what is on Fox News and that more people watch the channel’s news coverage than its opinion programming. Hannity has flirted with other political figures. He was due to appear at a 2010 Cincinnati fundraiser for the tea party when Ailes angrily called him home before he could participate. This time, with the Missouri rally, there was no one to call him back before it was too late. “Hannity is really pushing the envelope,” said a former Fox executive. “He’s daring people to try to stop him.”
“Nationalism is a Betrayal of Patriotism”
French President Macron gave a speech commemorating the end of WWI, inferring how multilateral international cooperation that won that war has carried on for a century in preserving free societies from the totalitarian fascism which would seek to take control. It emphasizes the importance of “patriotism” over “nationalism” in keeping our precious freedoms & human rights, as seen in excerpts from world-war-armistice-100-centenary-emmanuel-macron-leads-centennial-commemoration:
Although Trump was in attendance in Paris in a show of solidarity, on a profound level, Macron’s speech could be taken as a rebuke of the combustible American president who in the recent midterm congressional election campaign declared himself a proud “nationalist.” “This vision of France as a generous nation, of France as a project, of France as the bearer of universal values was displayed during these dark hours, as the very opposite of a selfish nation that only looks after its own interest,” Macron said. “Patriotism is the opposite of nationalism,” he added. “Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism.” “The lessons we draw from the great war cannot be rancor and resentment among other nations and it cannot be allowing the past to be forgotten,” Macron said, adding that the end of World War 1 began to lay foundations for the system of multilateral, international cooperation that prevails today.
Sulking
Trump acted like a spoiled brat in France. He was noticeably absent from the big remembrance ceremony, as commemorating the end of WWI must not have been important enough for him to risk the rain messing up his hair souffle. Even the grandson of Winston Churchill rebuked Trump for his absence. The only time Trump lit up in Europe was when Putin walked in the room. Trump still bashes Macron while gushing over Putin. He can’t tell friends from adversaries! Then back home again in America, Trump did zero-zip-nada to recognize Veterans Day. Once again, our president was a disgrace to his office! A more blunt way to state it, Trump has again proven to be a jackass! Here are some articles about the trip you could look up:
motherjones/trumps-cancelled-trip-france-cemetery
businessinsider/trump-canceled-his-trip-to-the-world-war-i-memorial-because-of-rain
washingtonpost/trump-shows-his-contempt-for-the-men-and-women-in-uniform
washingtonpost/a-powerful-reminder-of-the-dangers-of-trumpian-nationalism
thehill/our-burden-to-bear
slate/trump-paris-armistice-western-world-retreat
huffingtonpost/donald-trump-macron-european-army
washingtonpost/donald-trump-knows-the-true-meaning-of-sacrifice
In this conclusion to theatlantic/eighty-years-after-kristallnacht are these words:
Even in our own time, we are confronted with political moments that are not defined by dealmaking as usual, that thrust upon us the stark alternatives of right or wrong, responsibility or recklessness, conscience or complicity. Many feel that this is one of those moments. And may we, in our own days of fate, discover within ourselves the courage and integrity to ensure that our descendants remember our anniversaries with pride, not pain.
Again Claiming Election Fraud is more of Dumb Donald, but it’s also Dangerous
Trump is irresponsibly discrediting our election results in the minds of his supportive Trumpeters by shouting voter fraud on any close election that doesn’t go his way, &/or uses it to interfere in the recounts. It hearkens us back to after Trump won the presidential election, he falsely claimed there were millions of illegal votes. Even during the 2016 campaign he was alluding to it before a single vote was even cast. It’s like a dog whistle for his Trumpeters to revolt should they lose. So playing the voter fraud card seems to be his go-to reaction to elections whether he wins or loses, even though he just throws it out there without any real evidence. Another low point was yesterday on Veterans Day, when he not only failed to recognize our veterans, but the prez tried to deny Florida military people in uniform their rightful mail-in votes. The only voter fraud that’s actually been proven is in the way the GOP purges voters from the rolls through enforcing inadequate identification or those having not voted recently, throws out votes from the very subjective process of matching up signatures, letting candidates actually have oversight over an election, & closes voting places so predominately inner-city residents must wait in line for hours. Copy & paste any of these articles if you’d like to read:
vox//trump-florida-recount-election-fraud-allegations-coverage
vox/trump-conspiracy-theory-florida-recount
esquire/republicans-count-all-votes-florida-georgia-arizona
buzzfeednews/trump-false-voter-fraud-tweets
usatoday/fact-check-president-trump-gop-making-false-claims-election-fraud
mediaite/joe-lockhart-trump-questioning-election-results-hallmark-of-failing-democracy-moving-toward-authoritarian
washingtonpost/trump-calls-for-halting-recounts-in-florida-races-for-governor-and-senate
washingtonpost/trump-is-telling-florida-ignore-military-ballots-happy-veterans-day
washingtonpost/republicans-fan-worries-about-voter-fraud-in-florida-and-other-close-contests
thinkprogress/trump-disenfranchise-military
salon/3-conspiracy-theories-the-gop-is-using-to-suppress-votes
motherjones/georgia-election-provisional-ballots
slate/trump-voter-fraud-recounts-republicans-elections-georgia-florida-arizona
nymag/florida-recounts-proceed-amid-wild-gop-vote-stealing-charges
msn/inside-the-republican-strategy-to-discredit-the-florida-recount
And inside washingtonpost/republicans-war-on-free-and-fair-elections-cant-go-unpunished, Rubin had this to say:
Suppress voting among traditional Democratic groups; supervise your own election; and then cry foul to intimidate voting officials and to discredit the opposition’s wins — this sounds like something out of a tin-pot dictatorship, not what you’d expect from the world’s leading democracy. Ominously, this practice suggests that Trump and his cult-followers might refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election if things don’t go their way. The result could be a high-stakes constitutional standoff. Harvard professor Steven Levitsky, who co-authored the book “How Democracies Die,” explained in an NPR interview in January that “what Donald Trump has done by over and over again saying that — lying, saying that our elections are fraudulent, that the election was fraudulent, that 11 million illegal immigrants voted, that the election was not truly fair, free and fair is to convince a very large number of voters, a very large number of Republicans that our elections actually are fraudulent — and the same thing with the media.” Levitsky continued: “He has convinced a fairly large segment of our society that the mainstream media — that the establishment media is conspiring to bring his government down, is purposefully lying and making stuff up such that a fairly large number of Americans no longer believe anything but Fox News. In the long term, it’s hard to imagine how that’s healthy for a democracy.”
Clueless about the Deadly Fires
Here are more irresponsibly insulting comments Trump made, blaming forest service management for the tragic California fires. Perhaps it never occurred to him bone-dry conditions from long-term drought & the strong Santa Ana winds have turned the state into a tinderbox. And how unsympathetic & tone deaf would a leader have to be to criticize those in the middle of an immense tragedy like this? He even went so far as threaten to pull funding for dealing with such fire threats & emergencies. What a dope! If you want to read about Trump’s misplaced blame, you could do a search for these news sources & article titles:
mashable/donald-trump-blames-california-wildfires-on-california
thehill/california-governors-office-says-focus-is-on-wildfires-not-trumps-inane
businessinsider/trump-blames-california-wildfires-on-gross-mismanagement-of-forests
dailykos/Top-Firefighters-Rip-Trump-for-his-Reckless-Insulting-amp-Demeaning-Response-to-Fires
salon/trump-backtracks-after-backlash-intensifies-over-his-tweet-blaming-california-for-wildfires
washingtonpost/trumps-itchy-twitter-finger-his-latest-false-claims
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