Trump Dump: Internal Policy (Thread I)

[Flagg]

I know that people here like to compare Trump to Hitler but to me at least Trump seems less like the charismatic demagoue of 1930s Hitler and more like the ranting shell of a man living in his own fantasies that was the 1945 Hitler (even if Hitler didn't say those exact words the rant from Downfall depicts what Hitler's policies at the end of the war were), only difference being that Trump has even less control over what's happening.

I don't like to go the "NAZZIES!!!" route due to the immediate eye rolling and idiots shouting "GODWIN BLARGLE BLARGLE!!!", and I'm not saying President Rapist is Hitler, I'm just talking about the atmosphere created by these scumbags. That said, if the swastika armband fits...

Plus we have the cockroach Neo Nazi's (that cowards, morons, and fellow travelers call the "Alt-Right") coming out of the woodwork, so let's just call it what it is. I mean we have "people" like Lou Dobbs with a national television platform (granted only 4 people watch it at any given time and the number fluctuates because the viewers are so old they tend to die and need to be replaced by more Klansmen with dementia whose age is in the triple digits because when there's no more room at Fox News in hell the brain dead will spray feces on the internet walk the Earth ) advocating shutting down any news organizations that President Rapist doesn't like.

And the aforementioned President Rapist literally used the term "enemy of the people" to describe those news agencies. If that doesn't scare you, put down the crack pipe.*


*That wasn't directed at any individual here, it was a general statement.

[Flagg]

So President Douchebag has called the media that criticizes him the "enemy of the people" (Mao is laughing in his glass case) and professional shill Lou Dobbs is calling for the government to shut down any news outlet the President deems "fake news".

I did Nazi this coming. You just can't make this shit up.

It's like 2005 again, but without that slick intellectual veneer that only George W Bush could bring.

I never discounted the possibility that someone much worse than George Warcriminal Bush could steal an election to be "elected" President in my lifetime, I just didn't think it would happen so fucking soon. But given the massive racist backlash against Obama soundly thumping 2 Republican shitheads (speaking of which, enjoy hell McCain) I shouldn't have been surprised that the racist shits "took their country back." Well, reaquired the country they are genociding the American Indians for (because the genocide hasn't stopped).

[Lord Revan]

I know that people here like to compare Trump to Hitler but to me at least Trump seems less like the charismatic demagoue of 1930s Hitler and more like the ranting shell of a man living in his own fantasies that was the 1945 Hitler (even if Hitler didn't say those exact words the rant from Downfall depicts what Hitler's policies at the end of the war were), only difference being that Trump has even less control over what's happening.

I don't like to go the "NAZZIES!!!" route due to the immediate eye rolling and idiots shouting "GODWIN BLARGLE BLARGLE!!!", and I'm not saying President Rapist is Hitler, I'm just talking about the atmosphere created by these scumbags. That said, if the swastika armband fits...

Plus we have the cockroach Neo Nazi's (that cowards, morons, and fellow travelers call the "Alt-Right") coming out of the woodwork, so let's just call it what it is. I mean we have "people" like Lou Dobbs with a national television platform (granted only 4 people watch it at any given time and the number fluctuates because the viewers are so old they tend to die and need to be replaced by more Klansmen with dementia whose age is in the triple digits because when there's no more room at Fox News in hell the brain dead will spray feces on the internet walk the Earth ) advocating shutting down any news organizations that President Rapist doesn't like.

And the aforementioned President Rapist literally used the term "enemy of the people" to describe those news agencies. If that doesn't scare you, put down the crack pipe.*


*That wasn't directed at any individual here, it was a general statement.

well it would scare me more if Trump wasn't suffering from an inablity to get enough support from even his own ranks. In essence he's pretending the ship isn't sinking and ranting that rats who abbanding the ship are cowards.

basically freedom of speech means we have to accept that sometimes idiots and bigots get airtime as well, but we shouldn't be worried about that but rather the possible influence they might have and at this point Trump's actual influence doesn't seem that great.

[Flagg]

I don't care about stupid people saying stupid shit on TV. I grow concerned when powerful government officials (or in this case the most powerful government official in the country) using language from totalitarian regimes to describe news agencies reporting damaging stories and then praising shithead fascists like Lou Dobbs for saying that the government official in question should "shut them down".

Bloviating nonsense or not, it's at best irresponsible and at worst very dangerous. Even if President Cheeto has no intention of actually doing it.

[Simon_Jester]

I know that people here like to compare Trump to Hitler but to me at least Trump seems less like the charismatic demagoue of 1930s Hitler and more like the ranting shell of a man living in his own fantasies that was the 1945 Hitler (even if Hitler didn't say those exact words the rant from Downfall depicts what Hitler's policies at the end of the war were), only difference being that Trump has even less control over what's happening.

The thing is, Hitler was more evil than Trump, but he was also a lot smarter than Trump.

Hitler knew how to marginalize and outmaneuver his political opponents. Trump... really doesn't, not on any consistent basis.

Hitler wrote his own (crazy-evil) book. Sure, it was a book full of crazy evilness, but he didn't need a ghostwriter.

Trump, by contrast, may or may not actually be functionally literate.

Hitler was able to store and comprehend large amounts of factual information about the workings of government. In fact, this was one of the things about his leadership style that grew counterproductive; he knew so many details about medicine, military hardware, architecture, and so on that he tended to assume he was an expert in these areas, and disregarded the advice of real experts.

Trump believes himself to be an expert on all these things too, and ignores real experts too, but doesn't even have the consolation prize of actually knowing facts. He just sprays massive clouds of aerosolized bullshit all over the place.

Hitler knew how to secure the personal loyalty of individuals with talents useful to him. Hitler had guys like Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler on his side. Flawed (crazy-evil) individuals, but ones every bit as competent as most of their counterparts in the democracies and the Soviet Union.

By contrast, Trump has, I don't know, his son-in-law?

Hitler had Joseph (crazy-evil) Goebbels, an amazingly skilled (crazy-evil) propagandist, and a man so (crazy-evil) loyal he committed a murder-suicide on his own family during the fall of Berlin because he couldn't imagine the world going on without Hitler at the end.

By contrast, Trump has Sean Spicer. Oh wait, he doesn't anymore!

...

If Hitler had Trump's brains, the world would be a better place today. Because if Hitler had been as much of a fucking dumbass as Trump, his regime would probably have imploded roughly as fast, and that's assuming the Nazi Party would even have survived the disastrous failure of the Beer Hall Putsch.

[Lord Revan]

I know that people here like to compare Trump to Hitler but to me at least Trump seems less like the charismatic demagoue of 1930s Hitler and more like the ranting shell of a man living in his own fantasies that was the 1945 Hitler (even if Hitler didn't say those exact words the rant from Downfall depicts what Hitler's policies at the end of the war were), only difference being that Trump has even less control over what's happening.

The thing is, Hitler was more evil than Trump, but he was also a lot smarter than Trump.

Hitler knew how to marginalize and outmaneuver his political opponents. Trump... really doesn't, not on any consistent basis.

Hitler wrote his own (crazy-evil) book. Sure, it was a book full of crazy evilness, but he didn't need a ghostwriter.

Trump, by contrast, may or may not actually be functionally literate.

Hitler was able to store and comprehend large amounts of factual information about the workings of government. In fact, this was one of the things about his leadership style that grew counterproductive; he knew so many details about medicine, military hardware, architecture, and so on that he tended to assume he was an expert in these areas, and disregarded the advice of real experts.

Trump believes himself to be an expert on all these things too, and ignores real experts too, but doesn't even have the consolation prize of actually knowing facts. He just sprays massive clouds of aerosolized bullshit all over the place.

Hitler knew how to secure the personal loyalty of individuals with talents useful to him. Hitler had guys like Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler on his side. Flawed (crazy-evil) individuals, but ones every bit as competent as most of their counterparts in the democracies and the Soviet Union.

By contrast, Trump has, I don't know, his son-in-law?

Hitler had Joseph (crazy-evil) Goebbels, an amazingly skilled (crazy-evil) propagandist, and a man so (crazy-evil) loyal he committed a murder-suicide on his own family during the fall of Berlin because he couldn't imagine the world going on without Hitler at the end.

By contrast, Trump has Sean Spicer. Oh wait, he doesn't anymore!

...

If Hitler had Trump's brains, the world would be a better place today. Because if Hitler had been as much of a fucking dumbass as Trump, his regime would probably have imploded roughly as fast, and that's assuming the Nazi Party would even have survived the disastrous failure of the Beer Hall Putsch.

That's why I compared Trump to 1945 Hitler (you know the man whose mind and body had been ruined by years of paranoia and drug abuse), rather then the charismatic and smart (though utterly evil) demagouge Hitler was when he rose to power.

In essense when it comes to charisma and competense Trump starts where Hitler ended up after years of paranoia and drug abuse had turned Hitler into a shell of a man from what he was when he rose to power, the evil and paranoia was still there but gone was the charisma or the intelligence.

[FireNexus]

Currently John McCain has managed to use a lockstep party line vote on a secretly and unilaterally constructed bill into a soapbox for a speech about the importance bipartisanship and standard senate legislative procedure.

I fucking love the GOP.

[Exonerate]

I'm so glad McCain was able to overcome his brain cancer and return to Congress to make the crucial vote needed to proceed with repealing healthcare for millions. Truly a maverick American hero!

[Flagg]

"Repeal and you didn't really think we cared enough about the welfare of the American people to replace, did you?"

Lucky for John the Tumor he has the best medical care the American taxpayers can supply. Still, it couldn't happen to a better person since it's not like he's going to be around for reelection.

[Dragon Angel]

So, Trump wants to ban every trans person from the military.

Now ... I'm really, really not a fan of the military, and a tweet alone isn't instant government policy. But, this is still troubling. The highest echelon of the US government condemning all trans people being in the military is something that could set a very dangerous precedent for future decisions, as well as the statement that it's because we're burdening the system with "tremendous medical costs". He is testing the waters to see how far he can actually go with this, and to see how far his attitude will spread.

[Civil War Man]

So, Trump wants to ban every trans person from the military.

Now ... I'm really, really not a fan of the military, and a tweet alone isn't instant government policy. But, this is still troubling. The highest echelon of the US government condemning all trans people being in the military is something that could set a very dangerous precedent for future decisions, as well as the statement that it's because we're burdening the system with "tremendous medical costs". He is testing the waters to see how far he can actually go with this, and to see how far his attitude will spread.

One thing that just adds another layer of insanity to this is that, for various reasons, trans people are apparently something like twice as likely to enlist than cisgendered people. Not sure entirely how accurate that is, since there is a lot of uncertainty in official estimates of how many trans people there are in the population as a whole, but if the military were to actually move forward with it we'd probably see a repeat of how the army's population of linguists was virtually decimated during the Iraq War because of DADT discharges.

[houser2112]

One thing that just adds another layer of insanity to this is that, for various reasons, trans people are apparently something like twice as likely to enlist than cisgendered people.

Any idea what those reasons might be?

[Dragon Angel]

One thing that just adds another layer of insanity to this is that, for various reasons, trans people are apparently something like twice as likely to enlist than cisgendered people. Not sure entirely how accurate that is, since there is a lot of uncertainty in official estimates of how many trans people there are in the population as a whole, but if the military were to actually move forward with it we'd probably see a repeat of how the army's population of linguists was virtually decimated during the Iraq War because of DADT discharges.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was true. It's hard enough living as trans even with a nice job and relatively stable living conditions; if you're trans and poor, it seals your fate. The military provides a way for many to at least find something stable in their lives, and with not really many other good choices to transition (especially depending on if you live in a bad, bigoted area) many trans people see it as their only real option.

[Civil War Man]

One thing that just adds another layer of insanity to this is that, for various reasons, trans people are apparently something like twice as likely to enlist than cisgendered people.

Any idea what those reasons might be?

Trans people join for pretty much the same reasons anyone else would join the military. Some do it for love of country. Others because they don't know what else to do. Some do it to escape from an abusive relationship or family. But the most common reasons for enlisting are usually financial. A lot of poor people enlist in order to obtain financial or social stability in their life, or to escape from a dead-end life in a one horse town or the inner cities. And if going into the reasons poor people enlist seems unrelated, keep in mind that many of the same groups that find that trans people are more common in the military than in the general population also find that they are similarly over-represented in the homeless population.

As Dragon just pointed out, sometimes the military is the only reliable way to bring stability into your life. It's true for a lot of people, and doubly true for people who tend to lack stability because they are targeted by bigots for being who they are.

[Raj Ahten]

Slate and most other sources seem to be throwing out the figure of 15500 for the number of trans people likely in the military. (Posting from the phone, sorry for lack of links.) Certainly not an insignificant number. Trump isn't happy with clamoring for banana republic style government he insists on fucking over thousands on a whim as well. I can't wait for sessions to be shown the door and the purge of justice department and FBI to begin. Apparently everyone who ever associated with a democrat must go, except Trump himself that is. This latest farce screwing over trans people is just icing on the cake to all the horrific events in Washington lately.

[Esquire]

RAND cites somewhere between ~1,500 and ~6,500 serving in the active-duty military and ~850 to ~4,100 in the reserves in 2016, if that's helpful. I generally trust them to have used pretty sound methodology but haven't had time to investigate this study specifically in detail.

[Dominus Atheos]

The first tweet:

After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow......

The next tweet came 9 minutes after that. Apparently several pentagon officials were practically shitting themselves for that 9 minutes, not knowing if he was about to declare war on Iran or North Korea, since he didn't bother consulting with the pentagon before issuing this decision.

At the Pentagon, the first of the three tweets raised fears that the president was getting ready to announce strikes on North Korea or some other military action. Many said they were left in suspense for nine minutes, the time between the first and second tweet. Only after the second tweet did military officials receive the news the president was announcing a personnel change on Twitter.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/coralewis/trum ... .wqRz8AlE5

[The Romulan Republic]

I honestly wonder sometimes how long its going to be before someone in the military decides that a coup is the lesser evil. Not advocating that myself, obviously. But I doubt that they appreciate being left out of the loop on issues relating to their country's security by a President who's the geo-political equivalent of handing a hand grenade to drunk.

[Solauren]

The question is, would this ban actually hold up in court if challenged?

[Gandalf]

I honestly wonder sometimes how long its going to be before someone in the military decides that a coup is the lesser evil. Not advocating that myself, obviously. But I doubt that they appreciate being left out of the loop on issues relating to their country's security by a President who's the geo-political equivalent of handing a hand grenade to drunk.

I'd recommend reading up on Nixon's time in office. He was often drunk/high/other, and so Kissinger would act as something of an intermediary whenever he decided to nuke or invade something. So presumably there's every chance that if he orders a needless strike against the DPRK/China/Madagascar, the next guy along the chain can go "Uh... no."

[Flagg]

The question is, would this ban actually hold up in court if challenged?

Sadly: probably. He's the Commander in Chief (and I'd bet good money he reminds anyone within ear shot of that sad, sad, fact when dealing with military personnel) so I think (hopefully incorrectly) that he can, just like Truman desegregated the US Armed forces (I know, horrible example given the bigotry shown by Herr Cheeto).

What I'm confused about is, are there transgendered members of the armed forces that share barracks with members of the gender they identify as, rather than the gender they share the same dangly bits with. If not, what exactly is the fucking issue? Aside from scoring desperately needed political points to seem relevant, I mean.

[Ralin]

Sadly: probably. He's the Commander in Chief (and I'd bet good money he reminds anyone within ear shot of that sad, sad, fact when dealing with military personnel) so I think (hopefully incorrectly) that he can, just like Truman desegregated the US Armed forces (I know, horrible example given the bigotry shown by Herr Cheeto).

Aside from tossing red meat to his homophobic/transphobic constituents? It shows how he's cutting costs by relieving the military of the huge burden of transsexual surgeries and other trans related healthcare boondoogles.

[Nephtys]

Sadly: probably. He's the Commander in Chief (and I'd bet good money he reminds anyone within ear shot of that sad, sad, fact when dealing with military personnel) so I think (hopefully incorrectly) that he can, just like Truman desegregated the US Armed forces (I know, horrible example given the bigotry shown by Herr Cheeto).

Aside from tossing red meat to his homophobic/transphobic constituents? It shows how he's cutting costs by relieving the military of the huge burden of transsexual surgeries and other trans related healthcare boondoogles.

Cite how much this burden is. I hear fair-skinned individuals require additional sunscreen when deployed overseas. This means we probably should also ban those too.

[Ralin]

Cite how much this burden is. I hear fair-skinned individuals require additional sunscreen when deployed overseas. This means we probably should also ban those too.

Did you get the impression I thought that was an actual issue?

[Flagg]

Sadly: probably. He's the Commander in Chief (and I'd bet good money he reminds anyone within ear shot of that sad, sad, fact when dealing with military personnel) so I think (hopefully incorrectly) that he can, just like Truman desegregated the US Armed forces (I know, horrible example given the bigotry shown by Herr Cheeto).

Aside from tossing red meat to his homophobic/transphobic constituents? It shows how he's cutting costs by relieving the military of the huge burden of transsexual surgeries and other trans related healthcare boondoogles.

That's a drop in the bucket compared to paying female service members' pregnancies and maternity leave, and post-natal care. BAN WOMEN FROM THE MILITARY! It may happen, since Donnie Douchenozzel and Like Penice are against that, too.