[Farm93]

120,000 dead, GR, and you're still defending him.  

Not much of a realist, are you.

I'm a pretty firm opponent of Trump the Man - a narcissistic nativist, whose deliberately divisive style has definitely furthered the polarization of American politics. I didn't vote for him in 2016, will vote for Biden in 2020, regardless of VP choice, and contributed to Andrew Yang's campaign for reasons BC can guess.

Trump the Demon? The monster possessed of every imaginable vice, no discernible virtue, who revels in human misery and works ceaselessly for the triumph of evil? No, I do not believe in that person. In fact, the caricature and its perpetration are very helpful to the cause of Trump the Man, because it leads the opposition into absurdity. I lived through a full-scale demonization once before in my lifetime (Lyndon Johnson) and a minor league one (George Bush) two decades ago. They don't work. Frenzied hysteria does no one any good.

Like it or not, Trump the Man did not refer to the virus as a hoax. His opposition, relying on the complete suspension of critical faculties of so many opponents, misquoted him deliberately. They are mendacious, not Trump. That doesn't make Trump the Man any less an unworthy President. It does make them liars.

Attributing the 120,000 dead to Trump personally reminds me so much of Vietnam War propaganda that just led nowhere. Yes, burger - if only the nation had elected HRC, there'd be no dead and everyone would be enjoying cakes and ale. I posted a line that caused an uproar, to the effect that the US response wasn't all that different from most Western nations, including the much hallowed Germany. I doubt it would have been all that different with HRC.

Attributing a measure of reality and common sense to Trump does not make him any less a lousy President. It's really not that hard.

I used to believe in witches and hobgoblins, burger. But then I turned seven and I stopped.

(BTW, BC is right that the GR tag goes back to 1998, and exasperation with the poster known as Long Winded on The Bootleg, who knew little or nothing about college football recruiting at that time. I like it, though, and have stayed with it. I don't mean it to show any superior political wisdom. However, bringing a political opponent to ordinary human dimensions seems to me the essence of wisdom. Those of you who want to continue to believe in Trump the Demon are going to continue to do so, and not much I do. But it is not useful. Statements with negative truth value - i.e., 'Trump called Covid-19 a hoax ' - almost never are.)

GR - I realize a few view him as evil or whatever.   I tend to view Trump as a greedy risk-seeking individual that has never really cared about others.   I got that from growing up in the NYC and Philly areas while he was pitching crazy deals.   

Even then I marveled at his ability to find very risky bets and continue to get people to bet on those visions despite a number of failures and unpaid partners.  The Atlantic City dreams seemed crazy to me at that time, but he sold a NJ shore renewal dream that leaders wanted to embrace.  The 2016 coal revival promises had themes I recognized and understood. 

I am not sure I have seen a similar realistic view in your posts.   So I have always found the GR username as ironic.

I do believe loads of people in the world would sell pipe dreams too, if they had his ability to pitch fantasies with such ease.

President Trump bounces around from thought to thought in a confusing way that makes it hard to properly capture his train of thought.   In most cases the bouncing around reveals a view, but you have to pull back a touch.

President Trump wanted COVID19 to become a non-issue in the 2020 election process.  
President Trump understood an economy can falter if fear dominates aspiration.
President Trump understood the Democrats were already running around implying citizens need to take COVID seriously. 

He lumped all of those thoughts together in one portion of a rambling speech.   To use the word hoax in that thought process trivialized the concerns of Democrats, health officials, and scientists from around the world.   More than a few of his MAGA rally types left understanding that President Trump wasn't worried about the virus and those claiming to worry about the virus were just pushing a storyline as fake as the impeachment one.   A hoax.

President Trump and his staff work relentless to suggest things that were untruths or lies were just sarcastic statements or jokes.   

I think we all can agree if COVID19 ended at the end of March, like a seasonal flu, he would be telling everyone he was right to say COVID was a Democratic party hoax.

That hasn't been our reality, so now Team POTUS tries to spin away from the message left at the MAGA rally.    If you look at the more complete context there is no doubt President Trump made the wrong call.  His comments at the rally aligned with his decisions in the White House at the time, and those statements will be in plenty of DNC ads in October as I think we all can agree we have a lot more than 15 cases.


Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They go, ‘Oh, not good, not good.’ They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa, they can’t even count. No they can’t. They can’t count their votes.

One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over, they’ve been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning, they lost, it’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax. But you know, we did something that’s been pretty amazing. We’re 15 people [cases of coronavirus infection] in this massive country. And because of the fact that we went early, we went early, we could have had a lot more than that.

[Farm93]

120,000 dead, GR, and you're still defending him.  

Not much of a realist, are you.

I'm a pretty firm opponent of Trump the Man - a narcissistic nativist, whose deliberately divisive style has definitely furthered the polarization of American politics. I didn't vote for him in 2016, will vote for Biden in 2020, regardless of VP choice, and contributed to Andrew Yang's campaign for reasons BC can guess.

Trump the Demon? The monster possessed of every imaginable vice, no discernible virtue, who revels in human misery and works ceaselessly for the triumph of evil? No, I do not believe in that person. In fact, the caricature and its perpetration are very helpful to the cause of Trump the Man, because it leads the opposition into absurdity. I lived through a full-scale demonization once before in my lifetime (Lyndon Johnson) and a minor league one (George Bush) two decades ago. They don't work. Frenzied hysteria does no one any good.

Like it or not, Trump the Man did not refer to the virus as a hoax. His opposition, relying on the complete suspension of critical faculties of so many opponents, misquoted him deliberately. They are mendacious, not Trump. That doesn't make Trump the Man any less an unworthy President. It does make them liars.

Attributing the 120,000 dead to Trump personally reminds me so much of Vietnam War propaganda that just led nowhere. Yes, burger - if only the nation had elected HRC, there'd be no dead and everyone would be enjoying cakes and ale. I posted a line that caused an uproar, to the effect that the US response wasn't all that different from most Western nations, including the much hallowed Germany. I doubt it would have been all that different with HRC.

Attributing a measure of reality and common sense to Trump does not make him any less a lousy President. It's really not that hard.

I used to believe in witches and hobgoblins, burger. But then I turned seven and I stopped.

(BTW, BC is right that the GR tag goes back to 1998, and exasperation with the poster known as Long Winded on The Bootleg, who knew little or nothing about college football recruiting at that time. I like it, though, and have stayed with it. I don't mean it to show any superior political wisdom. However, bringing a political opponent to ordinary human dimensions seems to me the essence of wisdom. Those of you who want to continue to believe in Trump the Demon are going to continue to do so, and not much I do. But it is not useful. Statements with negative truth value - i.e., 'Trump called Covid-19 a hoax ' - almost never are.)

GR - I realize a few view him as evil or whatever.   I tend to view Trump as a greedy risk-seeking individual that has never really cared about others.   I got that from growing up in the NYC and Philly areas while he was pitching crazy deals.   

Even then I marveled at his ability to find very risky bets and continue to get people to bet on those visions despite a number of failures and unpaid partners.  The Atlantic City dreams seemed crazy to me at that time, but he sold a NJ shore renewal dream that leaders wanted to embrace.  The 2016 coal revival promises had themes I recognized and understood. 

I am not sure I have seen a similar realistic view in your posts.   So I have always found the GR username as ironic.

I do believe loads of people in the world would sell pipe dreams too, if they had his ability to pitch fantasies with such ease.

President Trump bounces around from thought to thought in a confusing way that makes it hard to properly capture his train of thought.   In most cases the bouncing around reveals a view, but you have to pull back a touch.

President Trump wanted COVID19 to become a non-issue in the 2020 election process.  
President Trump understood an economy can falter if fear dominates aspiration.
President Trump understood the Democrats were already running around implying citizens need to take COVID seriously. 

He lumped all of those thoughts together in one portion of a rambling speech.   To use the word hoax in that thought process trivialized the concerns of Democrats, health officials, and scientists from around the world.   More than a few of his MAGA rally types left understanding that President Trump wasn't worried about the virus and those claiming to worry about the virus were just pushing a storyline as fake as the impeachment one.   A hoax.

President Trump and his staff work relentless to suggest things that were untruths or lies were just sarcastic statements or jokes.   

I think we all can agree if COVID19 ended at the end of March, like a seasonal flu, he would be telling everyone he was right to say COVID was a Democratic party hoax.

That hasn't been our reality, so now Team POTUS tries to spin away from the message left at the MAGA rally.    If you look at the more complete context there is no doubt President Trump made the wrong call.  His comments at the rally aligned with his decisions in the White House at the time, and those statements will be in plenty of DNC ads in October as I think we all can agree we have a lot more than 15 cases.


Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They go, ‘Oh, not good, not good.’ They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa, they can’t even count. No they can’t. They can’t count their votes.

One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over, they’ve been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning, they lost, it’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax. But you know, we did something that’s been pretty amazing. We’re 15 people [cases of coronavirus infection] in this massive country. And because of the fact that we went early, we went early, we could have had a lot more than that.