Something you said in another thread has stuck with me, something I find unfathomably mysterious. You said the final straw that sent you from the Republican team to the Democrats was the nomination of Donald Trump. What I have never understood was the Trump hatred from the beginning. I have always chalked most of the hatred to the stunning defeat of Hillary. But you say you hated Trump before he beat Hillary. so what was it about him that so incensed you from the beginning? And what specific actions did he take as president that you found so repugnant?
In an attempt to make you feel at ease in replying I’ll go first. I was delighted to see Trump win because I find Hillary to be one of the most repulsive human beings in the country. And I thought she would be every bit as bad a leader as Biden has proven to be. I didn’t know the first thing about Trump beyond he was a Vietnam-era draft dodger whose voice grated on my nerves, a reality tv star and a corrupt NY real estate developer. In spite of all that Hillary scared the ever-loving crap out of me. So it was more relief that she lost than Trump won.
For a lot of the time I thought Trump was about average as presidents go. He did a few good things and a few stupid ones, just like every president before him. As time went by my tepid support for him became disdain. For me it started with his unilateral commencement of a trade war with the rest of the world. It was not necessary and turned into a detriment very quickly just as free market economists told him it would. (It was the first step of economic mistakes that have eventually led us into Biden’s inflation. But that’s another story.). Second was his cowardice in facing the war-making establishment. One of the promises he made repeatedly was he’d end what he called “our stupid wars.” I believe that promise alone was enough to persuade enough white middle class suburban women to vote for him, enough to give him the win. For all his bluster he got played like a fiddle by the intelligence apparatus. And third his compliance in the mass murder genocide of tens of thousands of Yemini citizens as carried out by Saudi Arabia. IMO those three things alone meant he deserved to lose to someone like Tulsi Gabbard.
But the thing is the Democrats never made an issue out of any of those three things. It was all made up bullshit like Russia, Russia, Russia. The true left wingers, people like Matt Taibbi, Aaron Mate, Caitlin Johnstone, Jimmy Dore, Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald BEGGED the Democrats to attack Trump on substances like that, all to no avail.
Here’s what baffles me about you. You claim to be a well read recently converted progressive. But in all the time you’ve been on this board you've never expressed an explicitly progressive principle. Your comments are pure establishment Democrat talking points right down to the insistence that any opinion contrary to the spin can only come from right-wing media. To me when you make comments like that it is obvious you are not well read, are not a principled progressive, but are just a young man caught up in feel-good talking points. Sorry to be insulting, but that’s what I see in you.
So here’s my question (it took long enough!). What was it about Trump that made you hate him FROM THE VERY BEGINNING? And once he became president why didn’t you as a progressive Democrat rail against anything of substance? When I said it baffles me I meant it.
In an attempt to make you feel at ease in replying I’ll go first. I was delighted to see Trump win because I find Hillary to be one of the most repulsive human beings in the country. And I thought she would be every bit as bad a leader as Biden has proven to be. I didn’t know the first thing about Trump beyond he was a Vietnam-era draft dodger whose voice grated on my nerves, a reality tv star and a corrupt NY real estate developer. In spite of all that Hillary scared the ever-loving crap out of me. So it was more relief that she lost than Trump won.
For a lot of the time I thought Trump was about average as presidents go. He did a few good things and a few stupid ones, just like every president before him. As time went by my tepid support for him became disdain. For me it started with his unilateral commencement of a trade war with the rest of the world. It was not necessary and turned into a detriment very quickly just as free market economists told him it would. (It was the first step of economic mistakes that have eventually led us into Biden’s inflation. But that’s another story.). Second was his cowardice in facing the war-making establishment. One of the promises he made repeatedly was he’d end what he called “our stupid wars.” I believe that promise alone was enough to persuade enough white middle class suburban women to vote for him, enough to give him the win. For all his bluster he got played like a fiddle by the intelligence apparatus. And third his compliance in the mass murder genocide of tens of thousands of Yemini citizens as carried out by Saudi Arabia. IMO those three things alone meant he deserved to lose to someone like Tulsi Gabbard.
But the thing is the Democrats never made an issue out of any of those three things. It was all made up bullshit like Russia, Russia, Russia. The true left wingers, people like Matt Taibbi, Aaron Mate, Caitlin Johnstone, Jimmy Dore, Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald BEGGED the Democrats to attack Trump on substances like that, all to no avail.
Here’s what baffles me about you. You claim to be a well read recently converted progressive. But in all the time you’ve been on this board you've never expressed an explicitly progressive principle. Your comments are pure establishment Democrat talking points right down to the insistence that any opinion contrary to the spin can only come from right-wing media. To me when you make comments like that it is obvious you are not well read, are not a principled progressive, but are just a young man caught up in feel-good talking points. Sorry to be insulting, but that’s what I see in you.
So here’s my question (it took long enough!). What was it about Trump that made you hate him FROM THE VERY BEGINNING? And once he became president why didn’t you as a progressive Democrat rail against anything of substance? When I said it baffles me I meant it.
