Here’s how Stoermer describes Liberal Nationalism and the role it plays in american politics:
There’s a belief system that combines two things — first, that change must happen through official channels (voting, courts, proper debate), and second, that this procedural faith is wrapped in American exceptionalism. The system isn’t just legitimate. It is sacred because America itself is exceptional.
Now here’s where it gets complicated. Klein says the project is “the American experiment.” Newsom builds on that. Kirk said the same things, but meant something completely different. Kirk’s American experiment would destroy Klein’s and Newsom’s — he wanted to dismantle multiracial democracy, restrict voting, and return to what he called the real Founders’ vision. That would end everything Klein and Newsom claim to value.
Yet Klein’s nationalism enables Kirk’s. By treating Kirk’s anti-democratic project as legitimate discourse within the American experiment, by claiming they share common ground, Klein validates extremism as just another voice in the great American conversation.
And I keep wondering: Does the white Christian nationalist movement understand something about liberal nationalism that we don’t? Do they realize that as long as they frame their goals in terms of the Constitution, the Founders, and the American experiment, individuals like Klein will always find common ground with them?
I found other notable liberal figures saying similar things while perusing twitter. Notably senator John Fetterman recently insisted that americans (sorry, I refuse to capitalize demonyms. Sue me) should stop calling Trump an autocrat and pleaded for toning down the anti-Trump rhetoric. To me this attitude plays right into MAGA’s hands. This is the kind of stuff that whitewashes bigotry and helps reactionaries move the Overton window further right.
I would venture that in a similar situation, on this side of the pond we would be out on the streets, striking the economy to a screeching halt. But in the US, there seems to be this nationalist bootlicking mentality that prevents people from even considering direct action, simply because they believe the system will somehow fix itself and everything will be honky dory in the end.
I can’t help but think the US of A was never truly the haven of freedom we were told it was. And as much as I appreciate the comparably stronger fighting spirit of the working class here, I’m not sure it will be enough to resist the rise of the far right here in Europe either, propped up by the ever influential american politics. I’m a pessimist, so please give me hope, or don’t. Thoughts, please?
Allan Miller,
What sources do you use primarily?
I don’t have a particular go-to. We watch BBC, ITV and Channel 4 news, which covers most of the available terrestrial output. I tend to look at the Guardian online – although that does have a ‘leftist’ bias: nearly all our legacy media aligns right. Some – the Daily Express, Daily Mail – are gruesome; they’re bad for my blood pressure. Then I see a fair bit on Twitter – which has developed a distinctly rightward slant since Musk took the helm.
If the BBC would permit me to write their response:
“The BBC wishes to apologise for any distress caused to President Trump by the broadcast of his words on […]. However, we do not consider a financial settlement to be in the interests of our license payers, nor legally justified. As a gesture of goodwill, we will donate $50,000 to a charity of his choice, without prejudice”.
Trump would look bad declining this.
The lawsuit between Trump and CBS was not similar and CBS did not lose it. Rather, CBS caved due to ulterior circumstances. Probably even your Grok would tell you that, but you prefer cultish brainwash.
It was about editing Kamala Harris’ interview. Guess what, they always edit every interview. Some week or two ago CBS made an interview with Trump, edited it – deceptively – to make Trump look more coherent than he is, and then published it. Trump had no objections this time. And if he had any objections and sued, there are no longer any ulterior reasons for CBS to give in.
BBC has no reason to give in. WSJ has not caved either. Trump’s birthday letter to Epstein was there all along. Spin that as leftist liberal bias.
PS: Also, BBC Panorama has apparently done this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti-tree_hoax
Allan Miller,
I like it 🙂
Do you ever look at Twitter?
Yes, as I mentioned. I find it has become a bit of a bearpit under Musk though. Including Grok.
We’re being subject right now to the bizarre spectacle of billionaire-owned newspapers wearing their bias on their sleeves, and their easily-manipulated readers, baying for the end of the BBC because of its perceived… bias. The Express, the Mail, the Sun are entirely aligned with the Right, feed an endless supply of dogwhistles, and are under no injunction to be ‘impartial’. The Sun has been successfully boycotted in Liverpool due to false reporting of the behaviour of fans during the Hillsborough disaster in which over 90 were killed in a crush. The headline was one word : “SCUM”. Now editor Kelvin McKenzie is on lecturing the BBC on journalistic standards! Piers Morgan likewise, subject to intense scrutiny over phone hacking which happened on his watch, though he implausibly denies all knowledge.
It’s a trusted global brand, something of which ‘patriots’ and ‘lefties’ alike can be proud. It can’t be bought by a billionaire, does not have to cave in because it needs approval for a business deal. We can watch programmes, live and on catch-up, without interruption by a single advert. Whole bunch of radio stations. Educational material, regional programming. Its board is too heavily weighted in political appointees, but overall, I think it value for money. £170pa for all that beats a billionaire-owned Sky subscription for £250 (rising to well over £1,000pa with add-ons)..
Grok – which is to say, Elon Musk – calls the BBC and NHS ‘bloated’. While they may not be models of efficiency, that’s an interesting choice of words.
Allan Miller,
Apologies, I misremembered. “The Scum” is the nickname for the paper in Liverpool; the headline was ‘THE TRUTH’ over false claims of fan behaviour.
colewd:
As Erik points out, CBS did not lose a lawsuit. The case never went to trial, and if it had, constitutional law scholars are certain that Trump would have lost. One Harvard guy (can’t remember his name) said the case was so frivolous that the Trump lawyers would have been sanctioned for bringing it. CBS’s actions were legal, moral, and in line with standard journalistic practice. They did nothing wrong, and the edits they made did not change the meaning of what Harris said.
Also, Trump lied (as you would expect) when he claimed that CBS substituted one answer for another. In reality, both clips came from the same answer, and CBS just did what they always do: edit for brevity where necessary. But Trump’s lie is the version that circulates on the right, and you, being a perennial chump, fell for it.
CBS settled with Trump not because they thought they’d lose in court, but rather because their parent company, Paramount, was merging with another company and needed the approval of Trump’s FCC. They knew that Trump would weaponize the FCC and block the merger unless they gave in to his ridiculous demands, so it made more sense financially to pay him off so that the merger would go through. It made financial sense, but capitulating to the orange extortionist was morally reprehensible and a disservice to the entire country. As a media company, CBS has a special obligation to stand up for the First Amendment, and they failed.
As Erik also points out, CBS (now under conservative management) edited Trump’s recent interview, and of course there hasn’t been a peep from the right about that. Pure hypocrisy.
It doesn’t take “real hard work”. It’s rather easy, and we’ve demonstrated that. This discussion has been going on for seven months and you still haven’t caught us making any untrue claims. We can tell fact from fiction, propaganda from truth. Yet we catch you falling for propaganda on practically a daily basis, the CBS stuff being the latest example.
We can tell fact from fiction quite easily, and you can’t. That should tell you something. The problem is you, not the media.
Allan Miller,
I saw the BBC edit last night and it was pretty blatant. I agree with you the right bias is there so we have the pot calling the kettle black. Truth and balance maintain credibility. In the short term spin can work but you need consistent truth to maintain credibility. Right now it is up to the public to remain skeptical and sort out the wheat from the chaff. This is very hard as humans we are very emotional beings and can gain information filters due to emotional preference.
keiths,
And they could have lost so they made a payment which shows along with looking at the tape they edited the interview thus doctoring the evidence. This is dishonest journalism just like the BBC practiced. In the short term spin can work but you need consistent truth to maintain credibility.
But in the interest of honesty, which you seem to value, you might mention that there was no relationship between the threatened lawsuit (is there anyone alive Trump has NOT threatened to sue?) and the bribe – that is, the “settlement” greasing the path to a highly profitable merger. This payment is in no way a tacit admission that the editing was dishonest. But given the corruption of the Trump administration, a gratuitous payoff was probably necessary to get Trump’s FCC to approve the merger. CBS would probably have found some pretext as a fig leaf to hand Trump money, but such bribes under Trump are a sensible business decision.
In any case, editing for brevity is normal, unavoidable, and rarely dishonest doctoring (except when Fox News edits Trump to make him look coherent).
colewd:
It’s certain that they would have won, and I just explained that to you:
You simply ignored my statement because it didn’t fit with what you wanted to hear. Do you know something about the law that those experts don’t? Should we conclude “the experts say Trump would have lost, but we know that he could have won because Bill says so, and Bill always gets it right”?
CBS did nothing wrong. Editing for brevity is standard journalistic practice because TV shows have time limits. Isn’t that obvious? Episodes of 60 Minutes last — you guessed it — 60 minutes. They have to cut in order to stay within that time slot. That’s what outlets everywhere do. It’s totally normal and ethical. The only way it would be unethical — and this is where the BBC screwed up — is if the editing is done in a way that distorts the meaning of what was said. CBS didn’t do that.
And if you think they doctored the evidence then, why aren’t you howling now about Trump’s recent 60 minutes interview that he is so proud of (though God knows why)? That interview lasted 73 minutes, but they only broadcast 28 minutes of it. Answer: Trump disliked the Harris interview, so that made CBS unethical in your view. Trump liked his own interview, so that makes CBS ethical in your view. It has nothing to do with principle and everything to do with what your Big Orange Daddy likes or dislikes.
Which is why you aren’t regarded as credible. This very discussion makes the point. First, you claimed that CBS lost the lawsuit, which is false. They settled. I told you that Trump would have lost the case, and I cited the experts. That was the truth, and you ignored it simply because you didn’t like it. You even made the bogus argument that the CBS payment proves that they could have lost, after I had just explained to you why CBS made the payment:
They knew that Trump wouldn’t hesitate to abuse his power and weaponize the FCC against them — just look at his weaponization of the Department of Justice. They made a calculation: “To pay off the extortionist will cost us $16 million, but if we don’t capitulate, he’ll kill the merger and that will cost us even more. Let’s pay him off.”
You got the whole thing wrong.
ETA: In fact, Trump has already weaponized the FCC as we saw in the Jimmy Kimmel fiasco. He hates free speech and the First Amendment, because when speech is free and people speak honestly, Trump looks bad. Trump took an oath to defend the Constitution, including the First Amendment, and he has repeatedly attacked it instead.
colewd:
If you think it’s important, why haven’t you made the effort to learn how to do so?
You just described yourself. Speak for yourself, not for humanity as a whole. In the seven months of our discussion, you haven’t found a single instance in which your opponents have failed to separate the wheat from the chaff.
We don’t reject the truth on emotional grounds, the way you do. When you truly value the truth, you accept it even when you don’t like it. Give it a try.
colewd,
There remains the fact that Congress and Senate both voted by simple (but insufficient) majority that he was guilty of incitement, based on the unedited version of that same speech. No-one in America had their minds changed on this issue as a result of this broadcast; positions crystallised 4 years ago. He has lost nothing financially, while his reputation is pretty low in the UK anyway. A billion for this affront is just taking the piss. It is outrageous that the rich can bully in this way. I despise the man even more. I do hope the BBC stand up to him.
colewd,
Given who we’re talking about, that’s funny. Of course journalists are held a higher standard than [checks notes] the President of the USA.
Allan Miller,
We appear to at least have common ground of truth being important for long term credibility.
colewd, to Allan:
Do you find Trump to be credible?
Now that more damaging info has emerged from the Epstein files today, he is back to insisting that they are “a Democrat hoax”. Do you think he’s right? In July he said that the Epstein files were
Do you believe him?
Should presidents be credible, or is that only for presidents who aren’t your cult leader?
Saw an interesting comment on this, to the effect that the reason Mike Johnson postponed swearing in the 218th vote to discharge the Epstein files from the DoJ wasn’t just to delay the inevitable, it was to give Bondi and company plenty of time to comb through all they had in full detail. So that when the DoJ finally releases the files, they will be so thoroughly sanitized they’ll glow in the dark. You won’t find anywhere in them any hint, even indirectly, that Trump or any of his cronies was ever even aware that Epstein existed. Most likely DoJ will be conscientious enough to burn everything that might annoy the king.
After all, everyone not a proven Trump loyalist has either quit or been fired. If there are any people left anyone might even suspect of being loyal to their oath of office, they won’t be allowed anywhere near those files.
(Note that these new emails didn’t come from DoJ, they were turned over by the Epstein estate.)
Karoline Leavitt dubs the BBC a ‘leftist’ organisation in response to a question from… GBNews, an unashamedly rightist organisation. It isn’t, but why would one wish to crush an overseas organisation simply due to its perceived political leanings? Especially when one (nominally) worships free speech?
The US appears to get its view of the UK entirely from the likes of GB News. That all rapes are committed by immigrants, that the BBC is ‘leftist’, that parts of the country are under Sharia Law, that we are afraid to roam the streets for fear of stabbing, as we cower in our little hobbit-holes dressed as Pearly Kings or Beefeaters. No corrective to these cartoons is accessed for a balanced view, because … ‘leftists’.
Meanwhile, all Americans wear ten-gallon hats and say “yee-haw” a lot…
What damaging info?
If there’s some Democrat-damaging dynamite in the Epstein papers, they’re being awfully sluggish in capitalising on it.
petrushka:
Assuming that’s a rhetorical question, why not just state your opinion?
The dog that didn’t bark, a reference to a Sherlock Holmes story in which the dog fingered an abuser by not barking. Multiple sources indicate Trump was the informant that eventually brought Epstein down. See Silver Blaze. But he, himself, never said anything out loud.
The analogy is imperfect, but I find it interesting that the Holmes crime was abuse, not murder or theft. The villain was found dead, kicked by the abused horse.
You are defending the pedo with all your energy and passion. But he is the president. He does not need you defending him. You are nothing to him. He is crushing your 401(k), Medicare and Medicaid with no second thought. Why step up to defend the pedo?
petrushka,
What are the sources for the claim Trump was helping take Epstein down?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/09/what-is-the-truth-about-trump-and-epstein-the-story-keeps-getting-murkier
It’s still murky, but the recent documents reveal Epstein hated Trump.
If it helps, Candice Owens is on your side.
petrushka,
Yes, there is no end of footage of him hating him.
Way to add credibility. The moon landings were faked, y’know.
Eta: I just read the Guardian piece. I may be falling for a Poe, but… what? Are you saying that’s your evidence? She’s laughing at the notion.
Except when we point out Trump’s lies, it’s “nit-picking”.
Allan Miller,
“Point to a lie” is an oxymoron. Looking at a statement itself does not give you intent.
Trump is one on the rare politicians that has delivered on most his complain commitments. This builds credibility among those who liked what he committed to.
‘Oxymoron’: I don’t think it means what you think it means.
So you don’t really value truthfulness at all. As long as he does what he said he’d do and your stocks are OK, he can lie his ass off.
If it helps, Karoline “the emails prove nothing but that Trump did nothing wrong” Leavitt and Donald the convicted rapist teen-beauty-pageant pimp serial adulterer with wives imported from East Europe Trump are on your side. You are solidly covered, pedo-defender.
Edit: As Trump has said (among everything else he has said) “Epstein is so much fun to be with”, so just for fun let’s recall Lutnick’s testimony.
At 3:35
Lutnick knows that “they participated in it” if you bait him with the name of <redacted>. If his testimony is true, his tune would not change when you substitute the redacted name for any other known friend/visitor of Epstein. But of course we all know how it goes – there is a reason why Lutnick’s affectionate alias is Nutlick.
colewd:
Your homework assignment is to look up the following words and phrases and learn what they actually mean:
…and others you’ve mangled that I’ve forgotten about.
How many times do we have to go over this with you? If the thousands of false things that Trump has said are unintentional accidents, then he is stupid, delusional, and mentally incompetent. “My Dear Leader isn’t dishonest, he’s just a confused and dimwitted old man who’s lost touch with reality” is not exactly a killer argument for his fitness as president.
Second, how many of the false things he says are in his favor, compared to the ones that are to his disadvantage? How many times have you heard him say false things about himself that were actually negative? When?
Do you really expect us to believe that he isn’t intentionally lying, and that it’s just pure coincidence that the thousands of falsehoods he’s uttered all happen to be in his favor? Are you gullible enough to believe that? If you are, then you’re lying to yourself in order to avoid admitting that your Dear Leader is a liar.
If by “complain commitments” you mean “commitments to complain”, then I agree he has delivered on them. He is the Whiner in Chief, never taking responsibility for his screwups and always complaining that it’s someone else’s fault.
I could list examples all night, but let’s look at just one of his commitments:
Prices are up, not down, and people are feeling the pain. Trump didn’t deliver on his commitment, and he hasn’t even been trying. Instead he’s been dicking around with things like destroying the East Wing of the White House, building himself a gaudy ballroom, and posting 25 photos (I am not kidding) of his bathroom remodeling project. Does that build credibility? What about lying to people on a daily basis, claiming that prices are down when in fact they are up? Does the following make sense to you? “He’s lying to me, and he failed to deliver on his commitment. I like that. I can trust this guy. He’s credible.”
On some points, such as on prices and on elections, Trump lies consistently. On the economy, he is going through transparent (heh!) efforts to cover up the statistics. Therefore, as far as MAGA logic is concerned (assuming there’s any logic there), Trump is credible.
Allan Miller,
No one has proven he “lies his ass off”. You and the other anti Trumpers here take hearsay and pass it off as fact. Bottom line is you guys are projecting.
To prove a lie you need to show intent. No one here has come close to proving Trump lies.
Spoiler alert. My friend has a family attorney connection that deposed Trump prior to his running in 2016. His comment was ” He is the most straight forward CEO I have ever deposed.”
You guys have latched onto “fake news” and your heads are filled with it.
Trump has provenly lied under oath. This ship sailed very long ago. You are far behind, brainwashed cultist idiot.
When will you stop lying? Perhaps more importantly, stop lying to yourself.
colewd,
To your satisfaction, but then you’re clearly a cultist. Do you think he’s that rare beast, a politician who has never uttered a word of a lie? Why is he so widely regarded as the poster-boy for untruth? His lies even get their own Wikipedia page. Is the whole world mistaken on this, and MAGAs the only ones with the inside track? Seems a tad unlikely. This is an absurd position, and precisely why we call you a cultist. No-one is given a free pass to this extent, by the rational. Most of us can see the good and the bad in our nominees.
In honour of his State Visit, our Channel 4 produced a 5 hour programme of his lies. Lie followed by refutation, over and over. Notably, this famously litigious individual did not sue. Nor has he sued when called a rapist or a paedophile. His willingness to sue is his undoing here. The dog that didn’t bark, indeed
I have heard him, with my own ears, utter untruths. “Hearsay” is another word you might need to bone up on.
What, we are lying, moral vacuums?
Lying or thoroughly confused. Take your pick.
That’s a lazy label straight from your own horse’s mouth. Anything that does not accord with your worldview is – all together now, kids – “fake news”.
colewd, to Allan:
Two paragraphs later, Bill takes hearsay and passes it off as fact:
Bill, you crack me up. Trump couldn’t have asked for a worse defender.
colewd:
Did you miss this?
By insisting that Trump doesn’t intend to lie — that his false statements are unintentional — you are in effect accusing him of being inept, utterly unable to distinguish fact from fiction, unable to gather correct information, stupid, and delusional. My guess is that you don’t feel that way about the Dear Leader.
The problem is, you don’t have another choice. For every lie we point out to you, there are three possibilities:
You reject #1, and #2 isn’t available to you because out of the (by now) dozens of Trump lies we’ve pointed out, none of which you’ve shown to actually be true. And you certainly won’t be able to do that for every one of the 30,573 untruths that the Washington Post meticulously documented during his first term.
That leaves you with #3. (Can you think of a fourth possibility?) You’re saying that Trump is too stupid, deluded, and mentally incompetent to distinguish fact from fiction. Why would you want someone like that in the presidency, other than the fact that you’re a cult member and he is your leader?
You are just like your Dear Leader. When you get boxed into a corner by the truth, start calling it “fake news”. Just another lazy label.
Do better, Bill.
colewd,
Just to reiterate a point I made last night: even #3 — the hypothesis that Trump isn’t lying intentionally, but is merely addled, confused, and incompetent — doesn’t fit the facts. I wrote:
If Trump isn’t intentionally lying, why are the untruths always in his favor? He’s lying, he’s lying deliberately, he’s been lying his entire life, and he will continue to lie. It fits perfectly with his known character.
This is just obvious. Keep an eye on this thread:
Untruth Social
I’ll be documenting plenty of Trump lies there, many of which are obviously and undoubtedly intentional. Enjoy.
One instance where I think Trump was wrong but not lying: “MS13” on Garcia’s knuckles. He seemed genuinely insistent there, I’m prepared to believe he actually thought it. And hence, came across as utterly stupid.
I don’t think he’s a stupid man per se – he has demonstrated cunning in his dealings, business and political. But he sure does a lot of stupid things.
If the bar is that a person must be shown to have knowingly lied, and that has not been shown with Trump, then no-one has been shown to lie, ever.
I think that with “must show intent” colewd has in mind the legal standard of lying, and by that standard plenty of people have been showed liars in court depositions and testimonies, Trump very obviously so. It’s just that colewd *knowingly lies* about this, just like he fails to acknowledge other even more easily verifiable facts. If colewd’s blindness to facts were genuine, then he’d be such an idiot that he would be unable to post anything on the internet, but he posts, therefore he must be lying, knowingly.
Edit: I’m also sure that colewd’s “spoiler alert” above is a total lie. He claims that his “friend has a family attorney connection”. It’s easy: colewd does not have any friends (he only has fellow cultists), so any “family attorney connection” is moot. If the attorney is real (more likely not), it’s necessarily a cult attorney, in the same basket with the likes of Alina Habba and Lindsey Halligan.
Allan Miller,
As an independent voter I see him using hyperbolic language but I have no strong evidence he is lying and in fact see him as much more straight forward than most politicians.
The demonisation of him ie Hitler, liar, pedophile, etc is from those strongly attached to the left. This tactic is losing steam and is becoming less effective and making people who use it look very dishonest although they may in fact be honest but indoctrinated by the media. You listen to the BBC and it turns out they were leftest and dishonest based on fraudulently doctoring the J6 video.
The severity of the attack on Trump does not appear to align with Judea Christian values.
Unpopular opinion. Trump is an actor with 14 years experience on television.
I think everything he says and does is a performance.
colewd:
There’s nothing independent about you. If you were actually independent, you’d be able to acknowledge more than zero of Trump’s lies. Far more. They’re obvious, and they’re in the thousands.
The evidence that he’s lying is overwhelming, and you’ve been showered with it since this discussion began seven months ago. See my previous two comments for the latest.
This is not about evidence for you. At all. It’s about emotion and nothing else. Trump is your leader and your hero, and you are so emotionally invested in him that you cannot acknowledge even the smallest lie that he’s told, despite the fact that he has objectively told thousands. You’re in denial.
This is normal behavior (sadly) for a cult member. Disagreement with the leader cannot be tolerated — that’s why you support a bill, the OBBBA, that goes against multiple of your own supposedly cherished principles. The Dear Leader wanted it, so you do too. Subservience takes precedence over principle.
As with disagreement, criticism of the leader can’t be tolerated unless it is so mild as to be anodyne. To say as you do that Trump is merely hyperbolic, not dishonest, is like saying that Hitler wasn’t overly fond of Jews, but that he didn’t particularly dislike them either.
That’s because you’re a cult member who has to fight against the truth on a daily basis to avoid disturbing the warm, fuzzy comfort of your Trump cocoon. Pathological liars aren’t straightforward — they’re evasive. Look at the coverup Trump is engaged in right now. Straightforward? Give me a break.
No one here has called him Hitler, and no one but Erik has called him a pedophile. (I have my strong suspicions. He’s definitely a sexual predator, and creepy things like this certainly raise my eyebrows, but I don’t know that he’s a pedophile and I haven’t claimed that he is.) So that isn’t an excuse for you to dismiss our criticisms, though you dearly wish it were.
Acknowledging the truth as the truth is not a “tactic”, and it’s very effective. You don’t have to fight reality. You make better decisions. It’s less fraught emotionally, because you’re not in a state of perpetual cognitive dissonance. You should give it a try. Embrace truth instead of Trump for a change.
It’s Trump’s conduct (and your support of it) that clashes with Judeo-Christian values. Criticizing corruption and immorality is perfectly in line with those values. Remember Jesus overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the Jerusalem temple?
Allan:
I agree. If he’d been lying, he would have been happy when the interviewer (Terry Moran) tried to change the subject. Instead, Trump wouldn’t let it go. He was convinced he was right and he wanted Moran to agree with him. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, here’s the clip:
Trump falls for an obvious Photoshop job
You can tell that he genuinely believes what he’s saying. Unbelievable.
There’s no question that Trump is both stupid and dishonest, which means that when he says something that’s both stupid and false, it isn’t always clear which of those flaws is responsible. Sometimes it’s obvious, as in the tattoo case, but often it isn’t.
Even stupid people get it right sometimes. It’s the sheer volume and breathtaking inanity of Trump’s cognitive gaffes that justify the label ‘stupid’ in my opinion. When I imagine Trump not as President but just as a member of my social circle, I have no doubt that everyone in the circle would regard him as stupid. He’s also meta-stupid: too stupid to realize how stupid he is.
I’m thinking of starting a Trump stupidity thread to complement the Trump dishonesty thread that’s already there.
It’s true. If Trump isn’t a liar, then no one is. A hundred bucks says that before Trump was in the crosshairs, Bill had no problem diagnosing people as intentionally lying. It’s funny how cult membership changes your outlook.
The key to Trump’s success is his ability to lie with utter confidence. It’s said that a convincing con man sincerely believes his own lies, or at least convinces his victims of the sincerity of his beliefs. Even with his track record of business failure, Trump somehow managed to convince suckers and bankers he was a safe bet, over and over. Also, as the Nigerian royalty hoax continues to prove, people’s desires for a ton of easy money overrides their common sense with thumping regularity. Trump always promised vast profits, promising them with full confidence (but never investing his own money, something somehow his victims always ignored).
There’s an old truism that it is much easier to fool people, than it is to get them to admit they’ve been fooled. A key secret Bill illustrates with every post.
keiths,
Hi Keiths
You are too far left to recognise an independent voter. Your claims are primarily left wing propaganda. I have no evidence that Trump has deliberately lied. He has been mistaken about issue before but we all fall into this category.
People who spend entire posts criticising a single candidate are IMO lacking any ability of reason objectively.
colewd:
I am an independent voter. We’ve had this discussion before. If you think “independent” means “centrist”, then please add “independent voter” to your homework list.
Independent voters can be right-leaning, centrist, or left-leaning. What makes them independent isn’t their position on the political spectrum, it’s that they don’t tie their thinking, positions, opinions, or votes to any particular party or politician. They’re independent. That’s me, but it sure as hell isn’t you.
I’ll just quote myself because I’m tired of wasting time responding to your endlessly repeated accusation:
colewd:
You’ve been inundated with it for seven months. Keep an eye on the “Untruth Social” thread for more.
What a weird thing to say. Would an entire OP criticizing Hitler automatically mean that the author was “lacking any ability of reason objectively [sic]”? I use Hitler a lot in these illustrations because it makes the point. If an entire post criticizing Hitler can be objective — and it obviously can — then so can an entire post criticizing anyone, including Trump. Let’s add “objective” to your homework list.
Also, for the 19th time, Trump is not a candidate. Add ‘candidate’ to your list, which now looks like this:
colewd,
No-one’s buying this ‘independent’ nonsense. However you may vote in another election, your devotion to Trump is total. It is completely absurd to claim that you have never seen a single lie, while thousands of examples have been gathered on the other side of the balance sheet.
Lefties like Vance, Rubio?
Get bent. This is another lazy ‘out’. Ignore substance, just assume ‘TDS’ and indoctrination. Saves a lot of thinking.
I ‘listen to the BBC’ to about the extent you ‘listen to Fox’. Probably less. I watch the BBC, among many other media, but the implication of ‘you listen to’ in conjunction with the Trump edit is that I sit there gawping, drool coming from a corner of my mouth as I mainline my prejudices uncritically.
The edit was wrong, but a majority in Congress and Senate, and the House J6 committee, and the testimony of J6 defendants, all paint Trump as guilty of incitement. Presumably they watched the BBC edit through a time travelling VPN.
Chortle.