> Congress has been in a state of relative gridlock for many years, across multiple administrations whether republican or democrat.
Let me stop you right there. It's not a both sides issue, is it? It's one side forcing gridlock? A party of obstruction, even.
> People thinking that Trump is a king or dictator are delusional, because the US doesn't work that way. If Trump rounded up thousands of US citizens and simply burned them alive, he would be arrested by the military and impeached by congress, because there are red lines that basically everyone agrees on.
No, and it's very important to you that you think that's true, because then people who disagree aren't just wrong, they're mentally ill. The only Trump Derangement Syndrome is the people thinking he's fit to be in any kind of leadership position.
The problem is that we're seeing people treat Trump like a king to a worrying degree, and he has gotten several of the traditional rights of kings that made people depose kings, like immunity to prosecution. And we're seeing things that were formerly thought to be absolute red lines like rounding up citizens and deporting them to Venezuelan prisons will absolutely be tolerated by his base. People like you constantly assure us that there are red lines he won't be allowed to cross, and then defend him when he does cross them and deny ever saying that thing would be wrong.
> Let me stop you right there. It's not a both sides issue, is it? It's one side forcing gridlock? A party of obstruction, even.
There are still things they agree on and pass legislation for, but on many other issues they both obstruct each other. The actual details of that aren't as relevant as the fact that they have trouble passing legislation and can't be relied on for many important issues at present.
> No, and it's very important to you that you think that's true, because then people who disagree aren't just wrong, they're mentally ill.
If he was an authoritarian dictator king tyrant master emperor, I would care, but he's not, so I don't care. The evidence does not support that position. There's a lot of rhetoric, propaganda, sound bites, teases and more, but those do not produce reality. They produce perspective.
> The problem is that we're seeing people treat Trump like a king to a worrying degree, and he has gotten several of the traditional rights of kings that made people depose kings, like immunity to prosecution.
This is false. The supreme court decision did not fundamentally say that he was immune to prosecution. That is what was spread about it to foment anger, but I read the actual language of the decision and it's just a lie.
> And we're seeing things that were formerly thought to be absolute red lines like rounding up citizens and deporting them to Venezuelan prisons will absolutely be tolerated by his base.
Unless you're talking about something I haven't heard about yet, they were not legal US citizens and they were not sent to Venezuelan prisons. There was someone who had some kind of temporary legal status and so there were complexities around it, but they weren't a US citizen.
> People like you constantly assure us that there are red lines he won't be allowed to cross, and then defend him when he does cross them and deny ever saying that thing would be wrong.
I don't know anyone like me. It's common for people to be unable to navigate the gray area. It's either black or white. You are either "with us or against us". That's just purely juvenile. Does Trump have some moral failings? Sure. Is he some kind of arrogant character? Sure. I think on one side, some people will get so stirred up into such a moral panic that they'll believe any false thing about him. On the other, some people get so caught up in his reality distortion field that they'll believe anything he says. If you fully give up and end up settling into one of those grooves, you lose all sense.
"Congress has been in a state of relative gridlock for many years, across multiple administrations whether republican or democrat. As a result, presidents have increasingly been leading by executive order rather than legislation. That is not Trump's fault, that is just the state of the country."
"People thinking that Trump is a king or dictator are delusional, because the US doesn't work that way. If Trump rounded up thousands of US citizens and simply burned them alive, he would be arrested by the military and impeached by congress, because there are red lines that basically everyone agrees on."
So presidents are acting more like kings, but Trump... isn't?
Does pardoning people who commit acts of violence in your name not sound like a king?
Or what about pardoning people who donate do your campaigns?
"Talk about taking over Canada or Greenland is just rhetoric to get better deals and improve ally strength, because this is what Donald Trump has been doing since the 1980s. Doing something with Venezuela is part of basic US national strategy, not simply a spontaneous whim of Donald Trump."
You think Donald Trump has been _strengthening_ our relationships with allies? In what manner has he done that in your mind? Is it the tariffs, the denigration, or the threats that are helping? And how does Canada talking about moving away from the US at Davos, then confirming it again later play into that? Is our allies cutting off signal intelligence actually a sign that our bonds with them is getting stronger?
Just trying to understand.
"Doing something with Venezuela is part of basic US national strategy, not simply a spontaneous whim of Donald Trump."
Which part of US national strategy is that exactly? Sure Maduro is pretty universally condemned by anyone paying attention, but so are plenty of other authoritarian regimes? Is part of the national strategy leaving the ruling class exactly the same as the one the apparently corrupt dictator we deposed had and then extorting it for millions of barrels of oil? Does the richest country in the world, which also is the largest oil producer and has plenty of access to a very stable world oil market need to resort to extorting barrels of oil from foreign dictators as part of national strategy?
If it's just part of our national strategy, why'd the rational change so frequently and why does no one seem to have heard that before Trump decided to start focusing on it and amassing weapons off their coast?
"This doesn't mean you have to like a current president personally or morally, or even agree with everything they are doing, but at least you can gain more perspective around what is real and what is not."
> So presidents are acting more like kings, but Trump... isn't?
No US president is a king, because the US doesn't have kings. The country isn't structured that way. Most countries legitimately do not understand this, because almost no countries are structured the way the US is.
> Does pardoning people who commit acts of violence in your name not sound like a king? Or what about pardoning people who donate do your campaigns?
A king is a very specific thing and you don't need to be a king to have a power which has been delegated to you.
> You think Donald Trump has been _strengthening_ our relationships with allies? In what manner has he done that in your mind? Is it the tariffs, the denigration, or the threats that are helping? And how does Canada talking about moving away from the US at Davos, then confirming it again later play into that? Is our allies cutting off signal intelligence actually a sign that our bonds with them is getting stronger?
When people watch news or listen to world leaders talk, it comes with a sense of authority. Many people are predisposed to automatically think that is the end of it, that they've found the truth. Like clockwork, Trump says some big bold thing that gets people talking and he does this to produce the kinds of results he's after that other people have trouble getting. It gets him a lot of criticism and hate, but he's been doing this since the 80s or even earlier.
He creates a "monument", because he says that nobody cares about deals that aren't monumental. The small uninteresting deals don't get much attention. People don't invest in it. As a result, he thinks small deals are actually harder to do than big deals. So he makes everything a big deal. He's a big deal. Ukraine is a big deal. Gaza is a big deal. Canada is a big deal. Greenland is a big deal.
Now, in order to be credible, he has to be known as a person who does get some big things done. So what you do is you see what can you actually do, and you do the biggest thing you can get done. Now you have credibility. You use that credibility as leverage to make larger claims and people will take your larger claims seriously, even if people who are anchored in reality may have the sense to know that larger claim is a bluff. He bluffs so much. If you remember that old youtube video of trading up from a paperclip to trade all the way until you get a car, it's like that.
So much talk about threatening to leave NATO, or destroying NATO by invading Greenland or any of that nonsense only makes NATO stronger. It makes them say, "hey, we need to be more independent. maybe we can't fully rely on the US if they're talking like this. let's invest more." When they invest more in their military, now the whole alliance is a little stronger. This is important, because World War 3 may be coming and we either need our allies to join us in some way in South East Asia, or we'll need them to be able to hold their own in Europe.
It amazes me the stuff he gets away with, but he's not any kind of threat to democracy.
> Which part of US national strategy is that exactly? Sure Maduro is pretty universally condemned by anyone paying attention, but so are plenty of other authoritarian regimes? Is part of the national strategy leaving the ruling class exactly the same as the one the apparently corrupt dictator we deposed had and then extorting it for millions of barrels of oil? Does the richest country in the world, which also is the largest oil producer and has plenty of access to a very stable world oil market need to resort to extorting barrels of oil from foreign dictators as part of national strategy?
We were already in Venezuela in the 1900s. It is estimated to have upwards of 300 billion to over a trillion barrels of oil. That dwarfs basically every other country. Oil is important for global stability and we still haven't discovered any energy solutions that fully erase dependence on oil. So long as it is needed, it has to come from somewhere. If Russia and China control it, that risks oil being traded primarily in some currency other than USD, even propping up some reserve currency. Venezuela also had Russian and Chinese military hardware, with Russia recently agreeing to send them missiles. That allows for comparisons with the Cuban Missile Crisis. They were also a stopping point for the shadow fleets which were breaking international law and helping fund Russia's war in Ukraine. Iranian terrorist groups were also operating in Venezuela. It was also at risk of becoming the next North Korea, but with both nukes and oil. It would've been a nightmare for freedom, democracy and global security.
> Congress has been in a state of relative gridlock for many years, across multiple administrations whether republican or democrat.
Let me stop you right there. It's not a both sides issue, is it? It's one side forcing gridlock? A party of obstruction, even.
> People thinking that Trump is a king or dictator are delusional, because the US doesn't work that way. If Trump rounded up thousands of US citizens and simply burned them alive, he would be arrested by the military and impeached by congress, because there are red lines that basically everyone agrees on.
No, and it's very important to you that you think that's true, because then people who disagree aren't just wrong, they're mentally ill. The only Trump Derangement Syndrome is the people thinking he's fit to be in any kind of leadership position.
The problem is that we're seeing people treat Trump like a king to a worrying degree, and he has gotten several of the traditional rights of kings that made people depose kings, like immunity to prosecution. And we're seeing things that were formerly thought to be absolute red lines like rounding up citizens and deporting them to Venezuelan prisons will absolutely be tolerated by his base. People like you constantly assure us that there are red lines he won't be allowed to cross, and then defend him when he does cross them and deny ever saying that thing would be wrong.
> Let me stop you right there. It's not a both sides issue, is it? It's one side forcing gridlock? A party of obstruction, even.
There are still things they agree on and pass legislation for, but on many other issues they both obstruct each other. The actual details of that aren't as relevant as the fact that they have trouble passing legislation and can't be relied on for many important issues at present.
> No, and it's very important to you that you think that's true, because then people who disagree aren't just wrong, they're mentally ill.
If he was an authoritarian dictator king tyrant master emperor, I would care, but he's not, so I don't care. The evidence does not support that position. There's a lot of rhetoric, propaganda, sound bites, teases and more, but those do not produce reality. They produce perspective.
> The problem is that we're seeing people treat Trump like a king to a worrying degree, and he has gotten several of the traditional rights of kings that made people depose kings, like immunity to prosecution.
This is false. The supreme court decision did not fundamentally say that he was immune to prosecution. That is what was spread about it to foment anger, but I read the actual language of the decision and it's just a lie.
> And we're seeing things that were formerly thought to be absolute red lines like rounding up citizens and deporting them to Venezuelan prisons will absolutely be tolerated by his base.
Unless you're talking about something I haven't heard about yet, they were not legal US citizens and they were not sent to Venezuelan prisons. There was someone who had some kind of temporary legal status and so there were complexities around it, but they weren't a US citizen.
> People like you constantly assure us that there are red lines he won't be allowed to cross, and then defend him when he does cross them and deny ever saying that thing would be wrong.
I don't know anyone like me. It's common for people to be unable to navigate the gray area. It's either black or white. You are either "with us or against us". That's just purely juvenile. Does Trump have some moral failings? Sure. Is he some kind of arrogant character? Sure. I think on one side, some people will get so stirred up into such a moral panic that they'll believe any false thing about him. On the other, some people get so caught up in his reality distortion field that they'll believe anything he says. If you fully give up and end up settling into one of those grooves, you lose all sense.
"Congress has been in a state of relative gridlock for many years, across multiple administrations whether republican or democrat. As a result, presidents have increasingly been leading by executive order rather than legislation. That is not Trump's fault, that is just the state of the country."
"People thinking that Trump is a king or dictator are delusional, because the US doesn't work that way. If Trump rounded up thousands of US citizens and simply burned them alive, he would be arrested by the military and impeached by congress, because there are red lines that basically everyone agrees on."
So presidents are acting more like kings, but Trump... isn't?
Does pardoning people who commit acts of violence in your name not sound like a king?
Or what about pardoning people who donate do your campaigns?
"Talk about taking over Canada or Greenland is just rhetoric to get better deals and improve ally strength, because this is what Donald Trump has been doing since the 1980s. Doing something with Venezuela is part of basic US national strategy, not simply a spontaneous whim of Donald Trump."
You think Donald Trump has been _strengthening_ our relationships with allies? In what manner has he done that in your mind? Is it the tariffs, the denigration, or the threats that are helping? And how does Canada talking about moving away from the US at Davos, then confirming it again later play into that? Is our allies cutting off signal intelligence actually a sign that our bonds with them is getting stronger?
Just trying to understand.
"Doing something with Venezuela is part of basic US national strategy, not simply a spontaneous whim of Donald Trump."
Which part of US national strategy is that exactly? Sure Maduro is pretty universally condemned by anyone paying attention, but so are plenty of other authoritarian regimes? Is part of the national strategy leaving the ruling class exactly the same as the one the apparently corrupt dictator we deposed had and then extorting it for millions of barrels of oil? Does the richest country in the world, which also is the largest oil producer and has plenty of access to a very stable world oil market need to resort to extorting barrels of oil from foreign dictators as part of national strategy?
If it's just part of our national strategy, why'd the rational change so frequently and why does no one seem to have heard that before Trump decided to start focusing on it and amassing weapons off their coast?
"This doesn't mean you have to like a current president personally or morally, or even agree with everything they are doing, but at least you can gain more perspective around what is real and what is not."
Primo ending though.
> So presidents are acting more like kings, but Trump... isn't?
No US president is a king, because the US doesn't have kings. The country isn't structured that way. Most countries legitimately do not understand this, because almost no countries are structured the way the US is.
> Does pardoning people who commit acts of violence in your name not sound like a king? Or what about pardoning people who donate do your campaigns?
A king is a very specific thing and you don't need to be a king to have a power which has been delegated to you.
> You think Donald Trump has been _strengthening_ our relationships with allies? In what manner has he done that in your mind? Is it the tariffs, the denigration, or the threats that are helping? And how does Canada talking about moving away from the US at Davos, then confirming it again later play into that? Is our allies cutting off signal intelligence actually a sign that our bonds with them is getting stronger?
When people watch news or listen to world leaders talk, it comes with a sense of authority. Many people are predisposed to automatically think that is the end of it, that they've found the truth. Like clockwork, Trump says some big bold thing that gets people talking and he does this to produce the kinds of results he's after that other people have trouble getting. It gets him a lot of criticism and hate, but he's been doing this since the 80s or even earlier.
He creates a "monument", because he says that nobody cares about deals that aren't monumental. The small uninteresting deals don't get much attention. People don't invest in it. As a result, he thinks small deals are actually harder to do than big deals. So he makes everything a big deal. He's a big deal. Ukraine is a big deal. Gaza is a big deal. Canada is a big deal. Greenland is a big deal.
Now, in order to be credible, he has to be known as a person who does get some big things done. So what you do is you see what can you actually do, and you do the biggest thing you can get done. Now you have credibility. You use that credibility as leverage to make larger claims and people will take your larger claims seriously, even if people who are anchored in reality may have the sense to know that larger claim is a bluff. He bluffs so much. If you remember that old youtube video of trading up from a paperclip to trade all the way until you get a car, it's like that.
So much talk about threatening to leave NATO, or destroying NATO by invading Greenland or any of that nonsense only makes NATO stronger. It makes them say, "hey, we need to be more independent. maybe we can't fully rely on the US if they're talking like this. let's invest more." When they invest more in their military, now the whole alliance is a little stronger. This is important, because World War 3 may be coming and we either need our allies to join us in some way in South East Asia, or we'll need them to be able to hold their own in Europe.
It amazes me the stuff he gets away with, but he's not any kind of threat to democracy.
> Which part of US national strategy is that exactly? Sure Maduro is pretty universally condemned by anyone paying attention, but so are plenty of other authoritarian regimes? Is part of the national strategy leaving the ruling class exactly the same as the one the apparently corrupt dictator we deposed had and then extorting it for millions of barrels of oil? Does the richest country in the world, which also is the largest oil producer and has plenty of access to a very stable world oil market need to resort to extorting barrels of oil from foreign dictators as part of national strategy?
We were already in Venezuela in the 1900s. It is estimated to have upwards of 300 billion to over a trillion barrels of oil. That dwarfs basically every other country. Oil is important for global stability and we still haven't discovered any energy solutions that fully erase dependence on oil. So long as it is needed, it has to come from somewhere. If Russia and China control it, that risks oil being traded primarily in some currency other than USD, even propping up some reserve currency. Venezuela also had Russian and Chinese military hardware, with Russia recently agreeing to send them missiles. That allows for comparisons with the Cuban Missile Crisis. They were also a stopping point for the shadow fleets which were breaking international law and helping fund Russia's war in Ukraine. Iranian terrorist groups were also operating in Venezuela. It was also at risk of becoming the next North Korea, but with both nukes and oil. It would've been a nightmare for freedom, democracy and global security.