Trump's Tweets | Imamother

dancingqueen

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 10:32 am

I find his tweets to be at best immature and juvenile and at worst dangerous (why is he insulting some of our closest allies by calling them pathetic?? And again in such a juvenile way.). And in general I'd rather him spend less time tweeting and more time actually working on solving problems with policy not one liners. Health care? World security?

He was fine as a celebrity, but IMO completely unfit to be president of the US.

WhatFor

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 10:34 am

Well today he announced his FBI Director pick via Twitter. And Sean Spicer definitely said we should take his tweets seriously. (I personally think that's why he announced his FBI pick on Twitter- to drive this point home.)
He clearly has a beef with his Justice Department, that's trying to hard to defend his travel ban, but he keeps undermining them in his tweets.

From the Wall Street journal, in a piece on Jeff Sessions:

Quote:

On Monday, Mr. Trump took to Twitter to complain about the Justice Department, which Mr. Sessions leads, and its approach to his executive order suspending U.S. entry to visitors from six predominantly Muslim countries. Two versions of the order were rejected by multiple courts; the second version is now being appealed to the Supreme Court.

“The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.,” Mr. Trump wrote.

Still, Mr. Trump signed both the initial and the revised version of the order, and only the president, not the Justice Department, is constitutionally empowered to issue executive orders

.

That last paragraph, my friends, is some artfully executed shade.

Full article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/j.....01691

↑ anon for this

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 11:20 am

SixOfWands wrote:

Trump has now said that he may live-tweet during Comey's testimony. I wonder if its worth taking a vacation day to watch this?

I seriously think he'd be much better off if his phone broke. His unsecured phone. Because, well, that's only a serious problem for Democrats.

To me, Trump's tweets and comments are a fascinating example of "kol haposel, b'mumo posel". But that is not unique to Trump, but true of many in the party, going back for a decade or more.

↑ Fox ↓

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 11:47 am

First, let me clarify why I brought up the caricature of Trump voters. I was responding to this, the idea that Trump voters are too unsophisticated to discern anything self-serving in Trump's tweets.

SixOfWands wrote:

He is using social media to attempt to de-legitimize the press, in an effort to make it appear to many of his followers that he is the only accurate source of information.

There is no evidence of that for the majority of Trump voters. Remember, many Trump voters were also Obama voters.

Now, back to the tweets. I don't sit on Twitter all day -- how can I when I'm on Imamother?! So I thought, "Hmm, maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe I've missed a lot of really offensive tweets."

So I went back and looked at all of Trump's tweets in the last two weeks. The majority were about honoring veterans, remembering D-Day, or announcing policies or actions taken. You could legitimately disagree with any of them, but the tone and language was pretty benign.
The three or four more controversial tweets -- the ones being mentioned here -- might have been ill-advised or strategically questionable, but they weren't crazy.

FranticFrummie wrote:

I voted for Trump, but if he does anything impeachable, I'll be behind the impeachment 100%. He should absolutely have to answer for everything he says and does.

This, 100 percent!

I voted for Trump with a bit of hope and a lot of trepidation. I disagree with him on several key issues, most notably free market stuff and prison sentences for drug-related offenses. I remain concerned that he lacks the experience and political capital to either work with or dismantle the "Deep State." Given those two biggies, his personal characteristics fade into the background of my worries.

Ben Shapiro just published a piece condemning Trump's tweeting. His thesis is that most Trump voters don't pay much attention. However, whether intentional or not, Trump's tweets divert media attention to low-value controversies while genuine policy implementation and change goes on without much scrutiny. I agree with this analysis, which brings us back to the beginning. Whether you agree with Trump's agenda or oppose it, the tweets are not where the action is.

JoyInTheMorning ↓

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 12:58 pm

FranticFrummie wrote:

People should say what they are thinking, whether it's stupid, annoying, or whatever. It lets you see the real person, and you can make your decisions about them based on that.

The very wise poet Maya Angelou said "When a man shows you who he truly is, BELIEVE HIM."

This is true for racists, anti-Semites, idiots, and wise men alike. What I really can't stand, is people who are phony hypocrites.

A Black friend of mine said "I like my bigots up front where I can see them. Otherwise, they'll just stab you in the back."

In some small towns in the American south, there are still restaurants that have "No Negroes" signs in the window. No problem, he won't give them his money. He said it's much worse in the north, where he'd get lousy service, no coffee refills, and possibly have his food spit on.

I disagree. האדם נפעל כפי פעולותיו. A person is influenced by his actions. A person who is given license to freely express his racism and who keeps on making racist remarks will reinforce his own racism. A fortiori when a group of people feel free to make racist remarks.

I have several times mentioned how concerned I am by the coarsening of speech in the public forum (in newspapers and on TV and radio) that Trump has unleashed. As a society, we are morally much weaker than we were before Trump made locker room language and insults of various groups common in media. And that is besides everything else that he has done. For that alone, we would be much better off if he were not in office.

↑ Jeanette ↓

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 12:59 pm

Fox wrote:

First, let me clarify why I brought up the caricature of Trump voters. I was responding to this, the idea that Trump voters are too unsophisticated to discern anything self-serving in Trump's tweets.

This, 100 percent!

I voted for Trump with a bit of hope and a lot of trepidation. I disagree with him on several key issues, most notably free market stuff and prison sentences for drug-related offenses. I remain concerned that he lacks the experience and political capital to either work with or dismantle the "Deep State." Given those two biggies, his personal characteristics fade into the background of my worries.

Ben Shapiro just published a piece condemning Trump's tweeting. His thesis is that most Trump voters don't pay much attention. However, whether intentional or not, Trump's tweets divert media attention to low-value controversies while genuine policy implementation and change goes on without much scrutiny. I agree with this analysis, which brings us back to the beginning. Whether you agree with Trump's agenda or oppose it, the tweets are not where the action is.

Don't worry, we can walk and chew him at the same time. Being alarmed by Trump's peurile Twitter tantrums in no way impedes us from being concerned about his attempts to destroy healthcare, trash the environment, dismantle consumer protections and incinerate international relations.

By the way, the "deep state" exists because governing is complex and requires coordination between many different departments with different responsibilities and areas of expertise. I agree it could be shrunk but it's not supposed to be repealed and replaced by a single old man with an itchy Twitter finger.

↑ MagentaYenta ↓

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 1:07 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

...
I have several times mentioned how concerned I am by the coarsening of speech in the public forum (in newspapers and on TV and radio) that Trump has unleashed. As a society, we are morally much weaker than we were before Trump made locker room language and insults of various groups common in media. And that is besides everything else that he has done. For that alone, we would be much better off if he were not in office.

Just today Eric Trump was complaining about the same thing and decrying the name calling. While doing so he said that those who oppose his father are 'not even people'. A few seconds later he called Tom Perez a whackjob. So there we have that. Ya really can't make this stuff up.

↑ JoyInTheMorning ↓

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 1:11 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

Eric Trump is no one to talk, especially seeing that he demeaned a large fraction of the nation in that same rant.

The fact that I am decrying the decline of manners in our public discourse and that Eric Trump pretends to do the same takes nothing away from what I am saying.

↑ MagentaYenta ↓

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 1:24 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

Nor did I say it did.

These are presumably well educated people, who cannot construct a cogent sentence, nor do they have the ability to recognize the dissonance of their statements.

ora_43 ↓

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 1:38 pm

FranticFrummie wrote:

I'm on a lot of mixed forums on the internet. I hear it all. I've lost family in the Shoah.

I still prefer honesty. I like knowing exactly where I stand with people.

Just speaking for myself, ignornance is not bliss. It makes me nervous.

Here's the problem: the minute you are aware that someone is anti-Semitic, so are a lot of other people.

And hey, maybe they will all tell the person they're being an anti-Semite, and the person will rethink their views.

But maybe some of the listeners have also been hiding their anti-Semitism. And then they start to think, "hey, it's not just me. Maybe I was wrong to be sort of ashamed of those thoughts. Maybe there's something to them."

And then you have a handful of openly anti-Semitic people.

And then a few more.

And the more there are, the easier it is for new people to get sucked in. Because if so many people are all anti-Semitic, there must be something to it, right?

Open racism creates more racism. I'm not saying we should take away free speech. But I prefer the person who is quietly, secretly racist - because they aren't actively promoting their views. Each person who is openly racist brings us that much closer to racism being socially acceptable.

↑ JoyInTheMorning

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 1:44 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

Nor did I say it did.

These are presumably well educated people, who cannot construct a cogent sentence, nor do they have the ability to recognize the dissonance of their statements.

Every good school admits (and allows to graduate) its share of idiots; having gone to good schools proves nothing. Each Trump that I have heard speak excels in producing meaningless statements and/or inconsistent sets of statements. They may be unaware (I think that is true of #45), or they may just not care (I think that is true of Ivanka).

↑ youngishbear ↓

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 1:44 pm

ora_43 wrote:

I agree.

Additionally, if racism is socially unacceptable, the shame factor can serve as a considerable deterrant to acts of hate.

↑ ora_43

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 2:24 pm

sheep wrote:

He wants to own the idea of being anti terror but doesn't want the travel ban. He also wants people to trust only him, not the media or r the courts. Viewed from that perspective his actions are quite logical.

He's betting that terror will continue and he will be viewed as the only person who cares to do anything to stop it

I'm really surprised sheep got so much criticism for her posts.

I think this is brilliant.

(I admit, I'm more than a little biased, since this was one of my theories about the travel ban, too.)

Think about it - what do you do if you want to be seen as strong against terrorism, and aren't overly moral?

You can actually fight terrorism, of course. But that's hard, and there's no way to prevent 100% of terrorist attacks. An attack could still happen, and people might start to think all your talk about being tough on terror was just talk.

But what if you wanted to do more to protect people from terrorism, but your political opponents wouldn't let you? Well then, any terrorist attack that happens after that is their fault. You did everything you could.

So if, in theory, you were amoral enough to want to go that route - it would make perfect sense to come up with a policy that you knew the courts would reject. Either there are no terrorist attacks - in which case you can take the credit, your bold stance against terrorism paid off, yay you - or there are terrorist attacks, in which case you were one who tried to stop it, if only they'd listened.

ETA - I'm not saying Trump is thinking this way. Maybe he's not that immoral, just impulsive and underinformed. I'm just saying, it would make a kind of sense.

↑ Fox

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 2:35 pm

Jeanette wrote:

Being alarmed by Trump's peurile Twitter tantrums in no way impedes us from being concerned about his attempts to destroy healthcare, trash the environment, dismantle consumer protections and incinerate international relations.

Stating as a fact that which is to be proven

Jeanette wrote:

By the way, the "deep state" exists because governing is complex and requires coordination between many different departments with different responsibilities and areas of expertise. I agree it could be shrunk but it's not supposed to be repealed and replaced by a single old man with an itchy Twitter finger.

Um, I believe that's approximately what I said . . . though I don't recall making a gratuitous ageist slur in the process.

youngishbear wrote:

Additionally, if racism is socially unacceptable, the shame factor can serve as a considerable deterrant to acts of hate.

In theory, this is unassailable. In practice? Well, ask the girls of Rotherham how that worked out for them.

The problem is not that racism, etc., should be socially acceptable. The problem is how we define racism, etc. Unfortunately, the definitions have been downgraded to the point that almost anything can be construed as an unacceptable slur.

If you want to be frightened, the work of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission under Obama-appointee Martin Castro offers a lot more material than Trump's tweets:

Quote:

The phrases “religious liberty” and “religious freedom” will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance.

In other words, the USCRC feels it's okay to practice whatever religion you want -- as long as it's not one of those weird religions that refuses to get with the times.

↑ farm

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 2:55 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

Noticing irony and commenting on it isn't hateful. Cool your jets or grow some thicker skin.

I didn't say hateful. I said hurtful. She posted her political opinion and was rebuffed in a super condensending manner where the poster was mocking her as if she wasn't in the room listening in.
But of course, I am interpreting typed words and it could be the poster meant it as a cute light tease.

Edited for typo

Last edited by farm on Wed, Jun 07 2017, 4:10 pm; edited 1 time in total