W.J. Astore
What kind of a presidential candidate tweets in the middle of the night about alleged sex tapes involving a former Miss Universe winner? Indeed, what kind of a man does this?
Donald Trump is a chump. I’d call him a chimp, except it would be an insult to chimpanzees everywhere. The man has no discipline, no sense of decorum, and no compassion for others (let’s not forget his signature line, “You’re fired”). Indeed, he seems to revel in humiliating others. This was mildly amusing when he was taking on equals on the stage during the Republican primaries, but it’s disturbing in the extreme to see him bullying the little guys and gals for whom he’s supposedly a champion.
So many sane people and major newspapers have gone on record as being against Trump that there’s little I can add. Sadly, Trump’s followers seem unperturbed and undisturbed no matter his insults and tyrannical behavior.
All I can say is this: Trump is not the kind of man my father taught me to be. My dad, who fought forest fires in Oregon in the CCC, a veteran of an armored division in World War II, a city firefighter for more than 30 years until his retirement, treated people fairly and squarely. He was humble about himself and considerate to others. I can’t recall him insulting others, certainly not in the intentional and hurtful way that Trump directs at others. Trump is especially fond of attacking women or minorities or anyone he sees as vulnerable, the very opposite of my dad’s code of behavior.
Don’t get me wrong: my dad wasn’t perfect. He had his faults. But his faults were not directed at others; he didn’t try to demean or diminish other people, as Trump so obviously enjoys doing. Unlike Trump, my dad wasn’t boastful; indeed, three favorite sayings of his were: “Still waters run deep,” “Don’t toot your own horn,” and “The empty barrel makes the most noise.”
You were right, Dad. The rushing nonsense from Trump exhibits his shallowness; the man is constantly tweeting his own horn; and, like the empty vessel that he is, he makes an awful amount of noise.
Trump: Not the kind of man my father would respect; not the kind of man our country needs. Dump chump Trump.
Bracing Views 
Hear, hear!
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The last thing we need is more chump change.
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“Sadly, Trump’s followers seem unperturbed and undisturbed, no matter his insults and tyrannical behavior.”
It is a sad state of affairs when humility, kindness, and touches of grace are prominently lacking among the prominate. It would be revealing to explore the true character of another presidential candidate. Some character traits aren’t as readily exposed as in the example of Trump. Perhaps we, as an electorate, would do well to be more perturbed and disturbed by behavior that has broad human ramifications, particularly those dealing in death and destruction. One presidential candidate has actually effected broad human ramifications.
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In broad strokes, and with compelling detail, this gives a view to what Clinton is in favor of, and complicit with:
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2016/09/us-in-syria-how-to-build-terror-state.html
“With a sectarian extremist political party like the Muslim Brotherhood, an armed force comprised of Al Qaeda and other extremist groups, and an array of complicit alleged NGOs including the “White Helmets,” the US and its allies have attempted to create a parallel state within Syria – a parallel state it hopes will eventually inherit the entirety of Syria’s territory, just as violent sectarian terrorist factions have assumed control over Libya – deconstructing it as a functioning nation state and plunging its people into open-ended, perpetual catastrophe that is reverberating across the planet in the form of terrorism and migrant crises.
“The US and its partners are posing as fighting against terrorism, while carving out entire nations for Al Qaeda and its affiliates everywhere from the North African nation of Libya, to the ?Levantine nation of Syria. It is a foreign policy in reality that cannot be sustained with the unraveling rhetoric used to promote and perpetuate it on the global stage, particularly in front of the UN.”
Also:
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/09/29/how-the-us-armed-up-syrian-jihadists/
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You make a statement alleging that two sources of dubious credibility, which you include as links, point to something ominous about Hillary Clinton and add some quotations apparently from those sources then hit post.
What’s your point and how does it relate to the substance of the article?
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OK, now let’s have a movement to Dump Hypocrite Hillary. The FBI investigation was a sham making a mockery of the Justice System paving the way for a corrupt authoritarian
government. Hillary has demeaned the many women her husband and former president has sexually assaulted. A lawyer mentioned at a social event to me that some of his clients were always skirting the law, they operate on the outside edge of the law and his job was to bring them back over the line to the legal side. He said he was tired of practicing that kind of law. Now, we have a biased and corrupt “mainstream” which never tires of aiding and abetting career politicians like Hillary Clinton avoid reporting on her straying outside the law.
Why did corporations and institutions give the Clintons over $100 million dollars in speeches? The answer: delayed compensation and in her case advance compensation. It’s all wonderfully legal, maybe. When Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State many of the people she appointed to ambassadorships and other jobs were major donors to the Clinton Foundation. Evidently, that’s a maybe legal too. At some point the unethical conduct of the Clintons points to criminality through abuse of power.
Comparing the minor missteps of a non-politician to the calculated and unscrupulous conduct of a career politicians is like comparing unknown malfeasance to known official malfeasance. Our “mainstream media” ignores Benghazi where the U.S. ambassador and three others were killed. When the 3 am call came it was unanswered by Hillary Clinton. In fact the “mainstream media” either ignores or glosses over every misstep, mistake and error of Hillary Clinton. A major threat to a democracy’s survival is a corrupt media, for without accurate and factual information the electorate is continually in the dark making electoral decisions based on falsehoods and misinformation.
This is not about Trump but a greater democracy which Hillary Clinton has abused for financial gain as well as damaging the nation through chronic lack of ethics.
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It is about Trump, Henry. He’s completely undisciplined and totally stuck on himself.
Of course, Hillary has plenty of her own issues; she’s deeply compromised, she’s made poor decisions, and she’s far too willing to continue, and worsen, America’s state of perpetual war.
Which is to say that both major parties have produced deeply flawed candidates. But for me there’s an immaturity to Trump, together with a meanness, that puts him in a separate category.
Far too many people are apologizing for Trump and his juvenile (and vicious) attacks. Some people say he’s just a crude businessman, he’s willing to speak his mind, he’s not PC, and so on. C’mon. The guy is a major ass with no class.
I understand people who don’t like Hillary. I’m no fan of hers. But to vote for Trump? An uncivil vulgarian who’s proud of his own ignorance? No thanks.
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“An uncivil vulgarian who’s proud of his own ignorance?”
We do live in a “representative democracy,” Bill, or would you deny America the chance of proving the truth of this claim to the world at large, once and for all? Just wait another month and you will not have to worry about American political leaders calling beauty contestants “fat” but a Commander-in-Brief calling the President of the nuclear armed Russian Federation “Adolph Hitler,” while a retired Navy Admiral and career Pentagram mouth piece speaks for the State Department threatening to send “Russian soldiers home in body bags” from Syria. One can certainly pick out and criticize Donald Trump’s puerile brand of arrogance, incivility, ignorance, and vulgarity, but I’d say that You-Know-Her, Victoria Nuland, Samantha Power, and John Kirby have made one obscene thing clear to Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov: “The Pentagon is no longer under the control of the White House.”
Or, in your distracted obsession with Donald Trump’s early morning tweets insulting “fat” girls, did you somehow miss that little military coup that took place the other day in Washington when the Secretary of War and his top military brass publicly repudiated the international agreements reached recently by Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barack Obama. You really didn’t get that? The Russians and the Chinese did. They will now act accordingly.
The Ruling Corporate Oligarchy long ago chose You-Know-Her as their preferred sock-puppet, but the phony entertainment spectacular that America calls “elections” must have two (and only two) “contestants” so as to provide the superficial appearance of a “horse race,” even if only a pair of bedraggled rats have been allowed to enter the running. Too bad that one of the rats will find herself taking orders from the Pentagram before she even assumes the threadbare mantle of “Commander-in-Brief.” “The Pentagon is no longer under the control of the White House.” If John Kerry does not resign in protest and if President Obama doesn’t fire Ashton Carter and the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff for mutiny, you can kiss the Constitution of the United States goodbye, fellow Crimestoppers.
The professional American military caste just told the President of the United States to go fuck himself and Americans have got nothing better to worry about than what juvenile names Donald Trump calls former beauty queens in the wee hours of the morning. Not a serious country, the United States of America. Not serious at all. Dangerous? Yes. Extremely. But “serious”? No way.
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Mike: Is the Pentagon too powerful? Yes. Is Hillary an enabler? Yes. Is the Pentagon/Hillary combination bad news? Yes.
That’s another article. It has nothing to do with my critique of Trump.
I refuse to play the zero-sum game that by criticizing one horse (or rat) in the race, I’m helping the other. No — a plague on both their houses.
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Bill, when you say Trump is stuck on himself isn’t doing it as a non-politician trying to defend himself against slanders and smears? Notice how clever Hillary Clinton is by ignoring and side-stepping issues that challenge her actions? Trump is not a seasoned politician and his not adept at pivoting to attack his opponent.
I agree Trump is crude at times, however, Clinton is so unethical and unprincipled that she and her party are now corrupting the government, including the FBI. The entire Clinton Foundation is no more than influence pedaling at national expense by allowing 18 people who donated to the foundation to become ambassadors and a total of 194 donors received appointments to the Department of State. The scale of this pay for play is the reason why Hillary Clinton had a private server, to hide this information. The FBI knew this but for political reasons did not pursue it making it a sham investigation. The harm done is incalculable because the private interest of donors superseded the public interest by their appointment. Mainstream media has not covered Hillary Clinton’s blatant abuse of power. Neither choice is ideal, but one has proven to be wholly deficient for public office for misconduct while in public office. The mainstream press shields her misconduct hiding the undermining of government for profit which is far more detrimental to the nation than Trump’s occasional crude comments.
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Trump is worse than crude: he’s cruel. And he seems to have no empathy at all. It’s all about Trump. Small wonder he’s never been in public service. He’s always been about Trump and making money. How this makes him suitable to be president is beyond me.
My criticism of Trump is not meant as a defense of Hillary. You may decide she’s even less fit to be president than Trump, but Trump as a sort of “lesser of two evils” doesn’t make him a viable alternative. Not to my way of thinking.
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Regarding the substance of the original post, I completely agree.
Donald J. Trump is little more than a child, a frat boy with a big checking account whose only concerns are for himself and his tiny little circle of his “in crowd” friends, who needs the adulation of the masses and lashes out at the easiest targets to gain the acclaim of the “popular people.” Too many qualified people have diagnosed him, albeit on line and without personal contact, as narcissistic, having a borderline personality disorder and perhaps even sociopathic or even psychopathic to ignore their warnings.
Unfortunately, too many in the United States’ anti-intellectual culture gravitate toward this sort of caudillismo the populist cult of the strong man dictator that was so prevalent in mid to late 20th century Latin America and led to many of the South American continent’s problems today. Like those caudillos, Trump is an empty suit, appealing to the basist fears of an ill informed, unthinking and incurious population.
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Thanks. What worries me is that many Americans take great pride in being “ill informed, unthinking and incurious.” They see this as a strength. An echo of George W. Bush’s “thinking with his gut.” Of course, anti-intellectualism has a long history in the U.S.; the “best and brightest,” moreover, have often led America astray.
But we seem to be witnessing something new: the denial of basic facts, to include the facts of science. The idea that belief is enough, e.g. if I believe global warming isn’t happening, it isn’t happening, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Thus with Donald Trump. Many people seem to believe he’s on their side, when all evidence points to Trump’s all-consuming narcissism. Trump knows only his own side. Again, he’s never been a public servant. He’s always been about making money for himself, exploiting the system (and many “little” people) to the maximum possible, using lawsuits and threats of lawsuits to get his way, avoiding taxes by claiming huge losses, declaring bankruptcy when convenient for him, the list goes on.
In old-fashioned speak, he’s a robber-baron with a big mouth. Again, I’m at a loss how this qualifies him to be president.
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The point of my original post is stated, “perhaps we, as an electorate, would do well to be more perturbed and disturbed by behavior that has broad human ramifications.” My understanding is that Clinton fully supported the Iraq killing field, the Lybian fiasco, the Ukranian and Honduran coups, and the dirty war on Syria manifested by mercenary terrorists. Her statements and attitudes regarding Russia, China, and Iran are at best churlish and lack even the modicum of sophistication that should befit American representation.
I agree, as I’m sure he knows, with Bill’s assessment of Trump. That is not in dispute. The mainstream media hammers this point home every day. Trump is lousy…I get it. But the dearth of class in the American political realm is far and away not limited to Trump. It was recently exemplified by Samantha Power’s hissy fit at the U.N.
If you had read the first “dubious” article that I linked, then it would be certain, rather than apparent, that the quotation was from the source linked. You are free to discount, out of hand, information that doesn’t comport to your views. I personally am on high bullshit alert when reading anything from the N.Y. Times or the Wasngton Post, for instance.
You might do well to gather a better understanding of 20th century Central and South America…who and what was supported and who and what was disallowed…what indigenous populations strived for and how they were undermined.
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The following illustration of the “dubious”, by Gilbert Doctorow, is relevant to this discussion. His credentials notwithstanding, he offers a fascinating view of those inclined to think of Russian societal perspectives, including views of our election saga. Really worth a look:
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/02/the-russian-view-of-trump-clinton-debate/
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Just for the record in response to this article:
The Constituion of the United States lists only two necessary qualifications for President: (1) He or she must have reached the age of 35 years and (2) He or she must have been born in one of the United States (presently numbering 50). It appears that Donald Trump has met those two — admittedly minimal — qualifications. Not every Republican who has run for President can say that. Certainly not George Romney (born in Mexico), John McCain (born in Panama), or Ted Cruz (born in Canada). All the other candidates running for President this year have met these two qualifications, as far as I know. So let us hear no more about who does or does not possess the qualifications for President. Our parents taught us that anyone can become President of the United States, and this year it looks as if anyone will.
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