Our Felonious Ex-President

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/01/17/our-democracy-will-not-last-jeff-flakes-speech-comparing-trump-to-stalin-annotated/

“…comparing Trump to Stalin.”

3 Likes
7 Likes

The Dem establishment has also been doing that constantly for months. They’re desperate to avoid mentioning fascism, and always happy for a chance to slander the left.

https://bbs.elsewhere.cafe/uploads/default/original/2X/b/be79504b34a7cdf713dbb0465af2b2c10cd35b02.jpeg

5 Likes

Flake is not a democrat and Stalin was neither left wing nor a communist.*

I agree with the tweet about Madison, though. If there is a candidate for worst president, he’s it. He actually explicitly set out to create a plutocracy, and tried to acquire Canada.

*Stalin, in fact, killed many people precisely because he was neither a socialist nor a communist but a paranoid who ruled through terror. If he resembled anything, it was a Tsar. If any country is a prisoner of its history, it’s Russia.

9 Likes

Yup.

But, to the people using Stalin to avoid mentioning Hitler, Stalin was the communist, and all politics left of the Democrats is communism.

Stalin is still the standard response of American capitalists when they want to justify opposition to socialism.

5 Likes

Precisely why I posted this.

2 Likes

Flake: Trump is taking an authoritarian turn, using the kind of language user local Stalin did to suggest he would hunt down his opponents, and must be resisted!

Also Flake: Let’s give the government more surveillance power.

5 Likes

I guess Flake cares more about the first amendment than the fourth.

This is the point I’ve been making about this book all along - whether it is true or not, that it got made says SO MUCH about how inexperienced the people at the executive branch are. First rule of dealing with the press: don’t trust journalists.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/01/17/the-details-of-michael-wolffs-easy-penetration-of-the-white-house-are-the-most-damning-of-all/?hpid=hp_hp-cards_hp-card-politics%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.b4cbd92646f4

7 Likes

That’s funny. I compare Jeff Flake to a wet noodle.

2 Likes

And now they’re setting up a religious inquisition squad to deny vulnerable patients medical care.

6 Likes

Well, I’ll just say he’s doing a lot less harm as a laughing stock than he could actively do if he were still an elected representative here in Michigan.

2 Likes

I think those ‘conscientious’ health care workers – who clearly don’t care about the lives of the actual human beings in front of them, which they’ve sworn an oath to protect – should be scheduled for the graveyard shifts and all holidays, and whenever possible for not enough hours to qualify for medical insurance or other benefits.

11 Likes

I suspect that “conscientious” Catholic hospitals will strong-arm workers.

3 Likes
10 Likes

Possibly. I suspect that eventually the Catholic church will split again. Some Catholics in the US actually hold beliefs contrary to Catholic doctrine, such as denying the Big Bang and Evolution, because they are not so much Catholics as generic Republican “Christians”. With a progressive Pope, it’s easy to think that at some point the disjunction of ideas will get too strong and the Church will split into a left wing and a Trump wing. The Trump wing is international; Berlusconi followers in Italy, the political Right in Ireland and Poland and the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg in the UK.
The implications could be power struggles for control of hospitals and schools, with the Vatican now behind the progressives. It will be interesting to see what happens. I’m not holding my breath but I wonder how long it will be before a Cardinal or two decide Trump is the Antichrist and opposition grows to every position of the Catholic church that is associated with the Republicans - including life of the mother versus the foetus.

7 Likes

While it can be said for most of the administration, “Christ, what a psychopathic asshole.”

7 Likes

I’m surprised he had to resign. He sounds like your average “Trump Base” member.

1 Like

There were several attempts already after Vatican II.

So far, none has gained enough traction to be regarded as a split the way the Reformation was.

ETA:

The only scenario that I can see causing a full split of the Church as you describe would be if someone more conservative than Pope Benedict XVI or more progressive than Pope Francis got elected to the papacy, and a number of the College of Cardinals refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new Pope.

The next papal election probably won’t be until Pope Francis dies (Benedict being the historical exception by stepping down from the papal throne, not the rule), so it may not be for a while.

8 Likes