Dishonesty is the defining characteristics of Trump and his administration, and lies are a daily occurrence. While there are far too many lies to track, I thought a thread dedicated to the worst and most notable lies would be useful. There’s a lot of material to choose from.
(I could have tapped into a rich vein of lies simply by linking to Trump’s Truth Social account — hence the OP title.)
Now you’re justifying a murder. There is no turning back for you.
Ordinarily, this is an excellent idea. But we notice that Noem immediately jumped to self-serving conclusions before any evidence was available except a short video showing something that bears no resemblance to Noem’s speech. She spoke of a mob, but there was no mob. She spoke of a car stuck in a snowbank the ICE agents were attempting to free. There was no stuck car. She describes the victim as a domestic terrorist, but friends and witnesses say she wasn’t even a protester. She said the officer feared for his life when the video shows he was in no danger. She said he was seriously injured, while the video shows him walking around normally. Tellingly, Fox News refused to air any of the videos.
Now, perhaps the videos were seriously misleading or incomplete, and there’s much more to the story. Noem certainly had no more when she produced the standard Trumpian narrative of one lie after another. But we now know that ICE and the other agencies involved prohibited anyone else, anyone remotely independent, from looking at any evidence or doing any investigation. Instead, the “investigation” will be done by the perps, and we know how that turns out. Noem and Vance have already taken an extreme position utterly at odds with the available videos, and if their position after their “investigation” differs from the conclusions they jumped to, we know a miracle has happened for the first time.
Considered in a larger context, what Trump is doing has a way of triggering “accidents” or acts of violence or other excuses, however pretextual, for using US troops to control the population using force and intimidation. Grabbing innocent people almost at random and locking them up somewhere, without any due process, is sure to provoke the kind of reaction Trump can use. I suppose this will eventually produce a nation Bill would love to live in,
Flint:
Tellingly, I have asked Bill five times whether he would prefer that America remain a democracy or whether he’s OK with the idea of a dictatorship under Trump. It’s the ultimate softball question. He refuses to answer.
I suppose he could argue that Trump isn’t doing anything wrong because SCOTUS says so. I think there have been at least 2 dozen shadow docket cases where the lower courts found Trump unlawful, and SCOTUS has reversed all but two, albeit with no hearings or written opinions.
Flint:
But the question wasn’t whether he thinks Trump is doing anything wrong — it was about which option he would choose if given a choice between America remaining a democracy versus America becoming a dictatorship under Trump. The answer should have been an instantaneous “democracy, of course”. He didn’t give that answer, and in fact he’s afraid to answer at all. I can only conclude that he would actually prefer a Trump dictatorship.
If fits. Cults are already mini-dictatorships, so it’s no surprise when a cult member goes full authoritarian.
The position of that bullet hole, if it was aimed at her head, indicates that he was at the front corner. The car was turning away. If he was nearer the grille, it would have hit his colleague.
This would be a lot less of a stupid statement had Noem, Trump, Miller and Vance not started the misinfo before her body was even out the car.
The context of the thread, the reason I brought it up, is the dishonesty of the regime.
I’ve seen all angles. I see no evidence the shooting was justified. But of course you side with the administration. The poor officer was hit so hard he managed to get 3 shots in. Which of course did not – could not – stop the car, so self defence goes out the window.
Local authorities have been barred from investigating. Why? Because Trump can pardon at the federal level.
These are dark times, and you’re clapping like a seal.
One should not need to be a partisan to be uncomfortable with the idea that resisting arrest, or even making contact with an officer, is a capital offence. Americans used to be quite feisty wrt government and protest. I always get ‘1776’ thrown in my face if they find I’m a Brit.
Obey them Redcoats, Yankees. If ye know what’s good for ye.
It is impossible for him to utter that. You as an American surely know that in rabid Republican (now MAGA) propaganda, “democracy” is a word that is frowned upon.
“Democracy is not in the constitution,” they say, “Republican form of government is.” This way they reveal their moronicity – they do not know that republic is in Latin the same thing as democracy is in Greek. Republic is the same concept translated into Latin from what democracy is in Greek. And there is no way to make them know, because they passionately hate knowledge and facts. They love their moronic propaganda since John Birch Society.
Democracy, free speech – even the ‘tyrannical government’ rationale for bearing arms – seem paper-thin concepts in today’s America. Cynicism, skepticism towards the government narrative is, IMO, entirely healthy, even vital for a functioning democracy. But because criticism inevitably emanates from the hated opposition, MAGAs have to circle the wagons, and defend the indefensible. Critics are propagandists, biased, irrational. ‘Our’ people, meanwhile, are always objective. Especially ‘independents’. It’s just that the Left are always in the wrong, is all.
Not a few of these self-styled libertarians will have been howling about mask mandates and government overreach 5 short years ago. Now a masked security force is defended to the hilt, given ‘absolute immunity’.
A great time for fans of irony.
Here’s Trump’s latest interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, mostly about justifying his war with Venezuela while again claiming to have ended eight wars. I did not detect any truth in this interview. Trump lies throughout.
If you watch/listen to the very end, you’ll come away from the interview with the impression that Trump started the war (among other reasons) to take away the Nobel Peace Prize from Machado. The Nobel Peace Prize is very important for him, this is why he is bombing small boats and that’s why he invaded Venezuela. (This is the impression that Spiegel magazine in Germany got.) What a clown idiot liar Trump is. And also dangerous psycho.
Now let’s see colewd say that it is all left-wing bias and there’s no evidence that Trump said any of this. And maybe it is taken out of context despite the interview being what it is. And if Trump repeats it, then it’s misleading propaganda to say that Trump lied *again*.
JD Vance: “She was trying to ram this guy with her car, he shot back, he defended himself, he’s already been seriously wounded in law enforcement operations before. And everybody that is repeating the lie that this is some innocent woman who was out for a drive in Minneapolis, you should be ashamed of yourselves”
Barefaced lies mixed with irrelevancies.
-There is no evidence of deliberate ramming, and considerable evidence against.
– ‘Defending yourself’ with a gun against a moving vehicle is just laughing in the face of physics. KE=½mv² if you want to do the maths. It ain’t gonna stop. As we saw.
– His PTSD from prior operations has no bearing, and should if anything remove him from traffic-related duties, and even firearm carriage, if he’s a bit yippy.
This video should be mandatory viewing at Police Academy for how not to handle a situation, and why not to shoot a driver and turn a vehicle into a 3 ton projectile.
It is, as others have remarked, a Rorschach test: we see what we want to see. Half of us see a panicked woman, unprofessional agents disobeying basic situation handling; the other half is blind as a fucking bat.
False dichotomy. The US has never been entirely a democracy, and Trump’s rule might never be a dictatorship. You have provided “heads I win, tails you lose” choices. If he’s sensible, he’ll reject your options.
I suppose one could argue that a stronger Presidency than has heretofore been the case is not necessarily a dictatorship, and a sane President could exercise unitary executive power for the public benefit, and still be subject to congressional and judicial restraints. I know Bill would never agree, but I’d argue that the problem isn’t the unitary executive per se, the problem is an idiot holds the office. Numerous far-from-stupid observers have argued that a benevolent dictatorship might be the “best” form of government (in terms of greatest good for the greatest number, etc.) provided that 1) there is a provision for an orderly transfer of power; 2) each succeeding dictator is also benevolent; and 3) the public has some useful means of recall. Great idea, if only power didn’t corrupt.
Well, not quite. Maybe the root words were once synonyms, but there are in principle distinct differences. Primarily, that in a democracy, laws are determined and voted on directly by the public, and in a republic these functions are handled by representatives elected by the public. A key difference is that a republic requires a constitution (written or not) and a democracy does not. The constitution lays out things the representatives can not do (granting rights to the people that can’t be overridden by a legislature). In a democracy, theoretically a majority can vote to deprive the minority of rights.
“Pure” democracies historically have only worked for small populations, basically where everyone knows everyone, and where the culture is homogeneous.
And here was me thinking that Erik was being unkind.
Oh dear.
“Democracy” includes “Direct Democracy” (Flint’s “Pure” democracy”) and “Representative Democracy” — y’know, the type that most of the world lives under.
It’s Americans we are talking about, so… I’m being too kind. I know because I’ve been through this before.
Jock:
Right. Republics are a form of democracy, not something distinct from it.
You are absolutely wrong. Get this false propaganda out of your head immediately and keep it out forever!
The truth is this: The distinction that you try to explain to me does not exist, never existed, and will not exist ever. The only reason that you think it exists is that you’re an American. In USA there are parties called the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, and since these are different parties named the way they are and most Americans are partisan by nature, often even hyperpartisan, voting tribally and patriarchally, then they think that the terms “republic” and “democratic” are at least as distinct as the parties. Sorry, but things are as I said. Look it up. Do proper research. Get out (of USA) more.
Flint:
No, a republic can still be a republic even if it lacks a constitution. “Constitutional republic” ≠ “republic”, and “constitutional republic” is not a redundancy. And neither of them is distinct from “democracy”. Republics are a form of democracy.
keiths:
Flint:
Not at all. My question doesn’t stipulate that there are only two forms of government. It simply asks which of the two given options Bill would prefer over the other.
If I asked you “Which do you prefer, chocolate or vanilla?”, would you reply “false dichotomy”? Nothing in the question implies that there are only two ice cream flavors. If you felt strongly about a third, you could always say “I prefer chocolate over vanilla, but my favorite is actually pistachio.”
Bill could do the same. He could say something like “I prefer democracy to dictatorship, but decision-making by chicken bone divination would be better than both.”
But it is a democracy, and America remaining a democracy is an option, which is why I presented it to Bill as one.
Irrelevant, because the question is about Bill’s preference between the two choices given.
Suppose we flip the question around. I think Obama was a good president. If someone asks me “Given the following choices, which would you prefer? That America remain a democracy, or that it become a dictatorship under Obama?” I would, without hesitation, choose democracy. And if I actually preferred an Obama dictatorship over democracy I would say so. Either way I win: I state my preference. There’s nothing “heads I win, tails you lose” about it.
If Bill preferred democracy over dictatorship, then he, like me, would have no reason to hesitate in answering or to dodge the question. That’s why I think he would actually prefer a Trump dictatorship to democracy. Admitting it would look bad, though, so he chooses silence instead.
I’ll just note two general American peculiarities that I have observed when it comes to law enforcement in USA. Applicable not only to ICE, but also to police of all sorts, DEA, FBI etc.
1: “…follow law enforcement’s request… ” Always when there are multiple officers around their intended target, they shout contradictory orders. This has also been reported in Renee Good’s case: One officer had just told her to drive away, when another one approached and yelled “Get out of the car!” The shooter was a third one who also yelled something – and after the shooting added “bitch” to it.
To an outside (non-American) observer, the contradictory orders seem disorderly. They make the law enforcement officers look poorly trained. However, this behaviour is so common in documented law enforcement encounters in USA and there even seems to be some level of coordination to it that there must be a purpose to it. The purpose is to arrest the target for “failure to comply”. The person’s failure to follow some orders (these are orders, not “requests” – colewd knows nothing whatsoever about his own country) in the confusion of contradictions is a regular method used by American law enforcement to get the person or to later justify whatever mess happened.
2: “…the car was a weapon to the officer who pulled the trigger.” One of the often-used excuses deemed to justify lethal law enforcement encounters in USA is that the officer feared for his/her own life. This is the exact opposite anywhere else in the world that I know of, definitely in entire Europe. Generally in the world, when a law enforcement officer has been found to have been afraid, this is disqualifying for the officer. Law enforcement is not a job for cowards, so an officer who gets scared is obviously not up to the task. “Feared for his life” is thus an aggravating factor for the officer, not a justification or excuse. But strangely in USA, cowardly officers who get trigger-happy when scared are treated with extra lenience as per American law. Very strange to an outside observer.
Didn’t mean to imply otherwise. The connotations are different, but both direct and representative democracies fall under the same umbrella. Claiming that they are entirely syonymous as Erik does is incorrect. But on earth1, the differences can be drastic.
Erik:
Instead of kneejerk blather, you might try looking it up, as I did. Educate yourself for once.
Keith:
Your question was phrased as a multiple choice question, but did not provide “neither” or “other” as an option.
(Incidentally, I would prefer a benevolent dictatorship within the limitations I specified, to a direct democracy. With a direct democracy, what decisions do you think would be approved by the 70 million Trump voters? Those with your beliefs could be voted instant criminals overnight!)
Yeah, all forms of government where there is input from the public are basically all forms of the same thing, right? No devil hiding in the details, no siree! As a matter of fact, every nation on earth claims to be a democracy except Saudi Arabia. So they’re all just different forms of the same thing, right? Only some anal nitpicker could find important differences between the democracies of the US, Russia, Japan, Nigeria, etc.
Problem is, reality in practice doesn’t accord with your definitions. Seems the Real World failed to consult you.
While this is generally true to some extent, the extent on the ground matters. Well trained police teams rarely have this problem, whereas ICE agents are notoriously untrained, often violent, and have entirely different ideas of how to handle a given situation. The effort to hire 10,000 new ICE agents has been problematic – they offer $60K as a signing bonus provided they pass muster, but it turns out that over half wash out because they’re illiterate, fat, have pending criminal cases, etc. The government had to eliminate the requirement that recruits do a sit-up, because most of the applicants couldn’t even do one! It’s also worth noting that these guys have masks, guns, no visible ID, no body cams, and their top superiors will decide that their victims are at fault (and they know it). ICE is NOT standard policing. The final police report won’t resemble what happened.
No, the police are not cowards. Being forced to react instantly in dangerous situations with seriously incomplete information is all too normal. Police often complain that in hindsight, people with much more complete information and plenty of time decide what the police should have done without understanding the actual chaotic dynamic circumstances.
But this often leads to police being accused of violations by people possessing information the police did not have. So the police have learned that when faced with a jury, “I was in fear for my life” is a code-phrase the jury always accepts. I suspect the universal cell phones bystanders all have, which show the victim was shot in the back while running away, makes this code-phrase less useful.
This particular case is interesting, because the video of what happened has been shown repeatedly except on Fox News, so the public is being asked whether to believe their own eyes of the lies of the President, Vice President, head of DHS, right wing internet mouthpieces, etc. I predict that whichever one the public believes, the government’s determination (nobody else is allowed to investigate!) will have the same result as every other case where the cops investigate themselves – that they did nothing wrong, and the victim is at fault.
Flint:
No, it was phrased as a binary choice between the two stated options. Which makes sense, because I wanted to know which of the two he preferred. I wasn’t interested in his opinion on the best possible form of government. The question was phrased in order to elicit the information I desired, not the information I didn’t desire.
I was asking Bill whether he wanted America to remain a democracy, not whether he thought we should transform it into a direct democracy.
keiths:
Flint:
Lol. I’m getting flashbacks to our epic many-month discussion of measurements, in which you kept arguing with a phantom keiths who existed only in your head. If you want to argue against something I’ve said, great — that’s what this site is for. Just make sure that it’s something I’ve actually said, not something the phantom keiths has said.
Do you think that if a country declares itself to be a democracy, it therefore is a democracy? Is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — aka North Korea — a democracy?
Equivalent reasoning: Only some anal nitpicker could find important differences between Ford Mustangs, Chevy Novas, and Mercedes S-Class sedans.
The fact that there are important differences between cars doesn’t mean that they aren’t all cars. Ditto for democracies. Whether something belongs to a category depends on whether it fits the criteria for that category, not on whether it differs from other items in the same category.
“My” definitions are the standard definitions, and they work just fine. The US is a democracy (for now). North Korea is not.
I’m no conspiracist, but I find myself wondering how and why his phone footage ended up in the public domain. It does not support claims that she is ‘deranged’, gives her a human face and calm demeanour, shows her moving the wheel left in reverse then right forward, clearly both actions inconsistent with ‘intent to ram’, has an almost movie-like horror as her killer catches his own masked reflection, catches someone (most likely him) saying ‘fucking bitch’ seconds after the shooting.
On their side, it shows a possible contact (which does not knock him off his feet this icy day, nor even cause him to drop anything), and shows Renee’s wife being a bit … I dunno, fresh?
I think people are deliberately sowing fear of ICE. They’re bad dudes, don’t push ’em. And it would suit Trump if there was widespread disorder in response. Martial law, cancel the midterms. Like I say, not a conspiracist…
And, why, in the name of [insert favoured deity] is the DHS trying to litigate the case on Twitter?
Are there no adults in this administration? Dozens of people are honking and whistling in the video. Shoot them all? What next, video of her dropping a sweet wrapper? Will I run out of rhetorical questions any time soon? I’d like to see beyond the last few seconds of that footage. What an inconvenient point for the feed to cut out; it would really help his defence…
Dysfunctional administration.
Sure, countries are different, but none of what you say tells you to call some of these republics and others democracies. There is no thing in the world that would tell you the difference between a republic and a democracy. The difference between republic and democracy is falsely imagined by many in USA due to their propaganda exactly as I explained. Instead the fact is that republic is Latin translation of the Greek term democracy – and this is all there is to it.
It is like noon versus midday. A midday can be rainy, shiny, it may occur in Florida or Cape Town or elsewhere in the world, but there is nothing about this that tells you to call some middays noon while strictly reserving the term “midday” for others. There is no difference in meaning between the terms noon and midday, just that “noon” is derived from Latin “nona hora” while “midday” is derived from other words.
In ancient Greece and Rome these words may have meant the same thing, but the usage of words changes over time and in modern days republic and democracy certainly do not mean the same thing. It is possible for a country to be a democracy and not a republic, it is possible for a country to be a republic and not a democracy, and it is aldo possible for a country to be both or neither.
In modern usage, a republic is a country where the Head of State is a non-hereditary elected position (in contrast to a monarchy where the HoS is a hereditary position). Also in modern usage, a democracy is a country where the choice of government is fundamentally decided by the votes of the electorate (either directly or indirectly).
For a democracy there is an additional requirement that elections are free and fair, not a ‘once-forever’ event, and that they take place under a system of (near) universal suffrage.
Under this usage, France is both a democracy and a republic, the United Kingdom is a democracy but not a republic, North Korea is a republic but not a democracy, and Monaco (I kid you not) is neither a republic nor a democracy.
Definitions are a useful preamble in discussing politics. Best of luck to US citizens in 2026 in whatever they can do to retain/regain some/more integrity in their political institutions.
faded_Glory:
North Korea is the opposite of a republic, including by the definition that you just offered:
Kim Jong Un is a hereditary unelected head of state.
Paging walto…
FWIW (not much), I think in modern usage ‘democracy’ and ‘republic’ overlap but not completely. If you have a monarch, you can’t be a republic. You may or may not be both a democracy and a republic. If you are a direct democracy (is anywhere?) you can’t be a republic. If you are North Korea, you can call yourself a republic, but aren’t (just as Nazis weren’t socialists).
This indeed isn’t worth much, because the world at large is far more complicated than the terms republic and democracy alone can account for, but these words are squeezed in everywhere as far as possible due to their prestige. Republic is Latin translation for democracy in Greek and further translated into plain English as commonwealth and free state and perhaps some more terms that have their historical or regional niches that cannot be freely interchanged.
The so-called Western World or the First World sees itself as leading the rest by democratic principle. They cannot say republican here, because not all of the First World countries are republics. Most notably UK is a monarchy, but to mitigate this embarrassment it is also said to be constitutional and a parliamentary democracy. Yet parliamentary democracy means exactly the same as representative republic – the people at large vote some of themselves into a smaller parliament.
The issue currently at hand is some peculiar partisan propagandistic false imaginations prevalent in USA. Tea Party ideologues, libertarians, QAnon and MAGA these days, and the likes of John Birch Society earlier, make far-fetched conclusions from that the word “democracy” is not found in the constitution of USA. The conclusions include that the Founding Fathers explicitly intended to avoid democracy and that the current Democratic Party is unconstitutional and hates America. You can detect such ideologues (or victims of this ideology) early on from statements like “Democracy is not in the constitution. Republic is.” and “USA does not have a parliament, but Congress.” Without any further details, these terms are actually interchangeable. Democracy and republic mean the same thing and the American Congress is a parliament, just like e.g. Portugal’s Assembleia is a parliament. Does it make sense to say “Portugal does not have a parliament, but Assembleia”? Yet in American minds it feels deeply significant to say “USA does not have a parliament, but Congress.”
Edit: This ideology is actually wider than the (extreme) right wing. In American schools it is taught that the rest of the world copied the constitution from USA, that the USA is the first country in the world to have a constitution, and insofar as there are countries who did not copy from USA, the people in those other countries have no constitution, no freedoms, no rights. These falsehoods have made their way into American widely cited encyclopedias and are being taught in American mainstream educational system as irrefutable axioms that do not need verification.
Do not underestimate the propagandistic brainwash effect enforced by the American public school system. I’m sure we all agree that the masses in Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were brainwashed by their respective public schools, right? Yet neither in Nazi Germany or in Stalin’s Soviet Union (much less in Soviet Union in any other era) was there a mandatory daily oath to the Supreme Leader in schools. In USA there is: The Pledge of Allegiance. There surely were propagandistic state-worshipping undertakings in schools in Nazi Germany and Soviet Union, but far from daily. So, if you think Nazi and Soviet schoolchildren were brainwashed, then you must assume that Americans are at least as much, if not more so.
Erik,
Indeed, hence my point was only about those words, as I understand their sphere of application. Appealing to common origin is not really relevant, since (by analogy with gene duplication and divergence) words of common origin can evolve separately with time and cease to be synonyms.
I won’t pursue it further, since (as with “you think there are more than two sexes!!!”) semantic disagreement is a bit of a dead end, once positions have been stated. I will just add that there are political terms like “globalist” and “neoliberal” that do my head in, as people seem to have a plethora of understandings of what they really mean by them.
keiths,
Fine, North Korea may have been a poor example.
Instead I will offer you the now defunct German Democratic Republic as an example of a country in recent times that was a republic but not a democracy.
Whatever Erik says, the concepts are not identical in modern usage.
I’m not sure about that. Even a Direct Democracy (which doesn’t exist anywhere, for in my mind obvious reasons) may have a (ceremonial) elected HoS and therefore be a republic.
Switzerland which is perhaps the nearest thing to a DD in existence, with its frequent use of binding referenda, has a non-hereditary HoS and is therefore a republic.
No, it does not, and what you say goes against all ordinary (modern) usage of the terms.
Once again, ‘republic’ stands opposed to ‘monarchy’, whereas ‘democracy’ stands opposed to ‘autocracy’.
Regardless of what powers Trump will seize for himself the USA will remain a republic until the presidency becomes a hereditary instead of an elected position. Whether it remains a democracy is rather questionable at the moment.
faded_Glory:
Here in the US, our non-hereditary HoS is a PoS.
Lol. No argument there 🙂
But here again, different approaches to government make words slippery. Presumably Putin is not a hereditary leader, but Russia’s “elections” are meaningless formalities. In fact, very few of the self-identified democracies in the world have meaningful elections, almost all are PR shams.
I would argue that what distinguishes an actual democracy from a sham democracy is the (actually followed!) provision for peaceful transfer of leadership. Several “democratically elected” leaders in third world countries have professed confounded bafflement that the US president could even permit himself to lose an election, much less abide by those results. They say WHAT? He was President! He controlled the military! He controlled the voting! He controlled the police! Are American Presidents all idiots?
Well, apparently not all. SCOTUS has decreed, in so many words, that both popular elections and assassinations are allowed by the Constitution! So SCOTUS understands the application of power, at least by a member of their party and ideology.
Bit of propaganda for ya.
Not to be taken too seriously – it is entertainment, but contains some good points. “We’re now respected across the world”. Er, yeah, no.
But here again, different approaches to government make words slippery. Presumably Putin is not a hereditary leader, but Russia’s “elections” are meaningless formalities. In fact, very few of the self-identified democracies in the world have meaningful elections, almost all are PR shams.
I would argue that what distinguishes an actual democracy from a sham democracy is the (actually followed!) provision for peaceful transfer of leadership. Several “democratically elected” leaders in third world countries have professed confounded bafflement that the US president could even permit himself to lose an election, much less abide by those results. They say WHAT? He was President! He controlled the military! He controlled the voting! He controlled the police! Are American Presidents all idiots?
Well, apparently not all. SCOTUS has decreed, in so many words, that both popular elections and assassinations are allowed by the Constitution! So SCOTUS understands the application of power, at least by a member of their party and ideology.
(And the succession of office at the death of most democratically elected presidents-for-life is rarely a peaceful affair. If Trump runs for office again, there will be violence. If he either loses or wins, there will be violence. He has ensured that even if he doesn’t run, the public no longer trusts elections and the losing party is guaranteed to claim fraud – and might be right!)
Flint,
I agree with much of that, as I said in my earlier post:
“For a democracy there is an additional requirement that elections are free and fair, not a ‘once-forever’ event, and that they take place under a system of (near) universal suffrage.” This also precludes ‘presidency-for-life’ from being a democratic institution.
Republic and democracy are two distinct concepts, and not two different words for the same concept. Your Russia example again illustrates this: Russia is a republic (and has been so since 1917 when the monarchy was overthrown) but it is not democratic (i.e. it doesn’t satisfy the requirements for a democracy).
Even the corrupt and autocratic ‘presidents for life’ understand these requirements for democracy, which is why they go to great lengths pretending that there are free and fair elections (when there are not) and that they will not necessarily be in function for all of their lives (which is why they hold these sham elections where every time they are re-elected with 97% of the votes…).
In USA, ‘democracy’ also stands opposed to ‘republic’ which is why colewd is unable to say that he prefers democracy over dictatorship. Between democracy and dictatorship, democracy is the more cursed thing in his mind, for the reasons that I have explained. Half of Americans are like this – I’ve cited the movements that embody this – and the other half should not be foolish enough to pretend that that’s not the case.
It does exist and has existed without break for centuries in some places. You just don’t know about it. It’s very common for Americans to not know things about their own country, so no wonder about things elsewhere in the world.
Just had a ‘conversation’ on Twitter involving 2 US ladies that has me boggling. The basic case related to what good a bullet can do from 3ft in neutralising a direct threat. But their nastiness was incredible.
“Well she won’t do that again”.
or
“And now she’s a corpse”.
and something about my masculinity – US women pull that one a lot!
“Happy mom”, as one described herself in her bio. Good grief, America.
Of course, many accounts on Twitter are bots, but they seemed real. Christians, in all likelihood. But because their cult has told them the deranged lesbian leftist deliberately rammed the brave officer, they think she deserved to die, bullets stop cars, basic manoeuvres indicating intent to escape really mean the opposite.
Worrying. Genuinely.
It might help the conversation if you stopped conflating the names of two U.S. political parties with the established meaning of the words ‘republic’ and ‘democratic’. Context matters.
I wasn’t aware that there are countries that are governed by direct democracy (i.e. with all decisions taken by the popular vote rather than by a government of whatever stripe). Can you name some of these please?
What you say about Americans holds true for most people anywhere in the world. Apparently the day after the EU Referendum in the UK the most Googled term there was ‘EU’….
By the way, I’m not an American nor do I live in the US, but I originate from one of those ’embarrassing’ countries that are a democratic monarchy (not that I’m a monarchist, mind you).
Good for you that you’re not an American. However, unfortunately for you, the context is American. In the US Constitution they could have written ‘democratic’ everywhere where they wrote ‘republican’ and it would not change the meaning one bit. Try reading it some day. I have. But in American minds (at least half of them) it is supersignificant that it says ‘republican’ and one of the meanings according to the “literalist” interpretation is that the Democratic Party is of the devil.
Anyway, back to the main topic: Trump quotes
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/11/us/politics/trump-interview-white-people-discrimination.html
So, civil rights are anti-white. You think this is some obscure fringe opinion in USA? No, it’s their President talking. Different from Hitler in Nazi Germany, the majority of American voters voted this guy into office. So it’s the mainstream opinion in USA. Get real, boys.
Allan Miller,
I am perfectly willing to accept he is a liar or lies more than the average politician if the claim is supported. Media spin is not support IMO. So far we are still at one supported clam and if that stands it makes him the opposite of what you guys are projecting.
For me whether he is effective is yet to be seen but some indicators like economic growth, inflation, crime and the trade deficit look positive at this point.
colewd:
No, you aren’t. You simply ignore that support when it is presented, as you’ve done with the “I tried out for MLB with Willie McCovey” lie and the “Obama and his co-conspirators created the Epstein files” lie.
The question isn’t whether Trump is a liar. That’s indisputable. The question is “Why is Bill, a grown man, so emotionally dependent on Donald Trump that he denies the truth when it’s right in front of him?”
It’s a psychological question, not an evidential one.
It’s all supported, in great detail, but you play this stupid sealioning game of insisting that people go to the enormous effort of persuading you one by painful one. Each one takes about a month, by which time you’ve forgotten if any were supported.
Let’s try just one again: his uncle teaching the Unabomber. It’s a lie. I’ve said it numerous times, but you continue to pretend no-one has supported any.
Irrelevant to his veracity. As has been said a thousand times. “He lies but I like him on immigration” would be rational position. But that’s not it. “I like him on immigration so I have a completely irrational inability to concede an inch on any criticism of his character”.
It’s funny. When keiths produces a long list of lies, Bill nods off. So we narrow it down to one: “Pshaw! Just one? Now do another”.
Rinse and repeat.