The Trumpism monster seems far from dead. This guy Gaetz is a certified moron.....
The Trumpism monster seems far from dead. This guy Gaetz is a certified moron.....
This should probably be in the ex president thread but I can't find it for some reason.
So, if a mod could just go ahead and move it,....
A good take on Trump post presidency.
Complete article hereThe Antipope of Mar-a-Lago.
The ousted leader refused to relent to reality.
Set against a backdrop of avarice and inequality and persistent sickness, distrust and misrule, the leader exploited and exacerbated societal unrest to seize and flaunt vast power—doing anything and everything he could to try to keep it in his grip. He resisted pleas for unity and calm. He tested the loyalty of even his most ardent and important establishment supporters. He was censured and then toppled. Still, though, he declined to consider even the smallest acquiescence. Besieged and increasingly isolated, he faded as he aged—but he never yielded. Some people believed he had no less than the blessing of God.
He was Benedict XIII—“the pope,” said Joëlle Rollo-Koster, a noted scholar of the Middle Ages, “who never conceded.”
Benedict, who died in 1423, was the last of the popes of Avignon, in what’s now the south of France. He was an “antipope”—in opposition, that is, to a sequence of popes presiding from the more customary hub of Rome—and insisted even as he was twice deposed that he remained the rightful pontiff. He tried to exert control from a fortress of a palace in a separate seat of power—propped up by a stubborn type of papal court, retaining sufficient political capital to pressure heads of states to pick sides, bestowing benedictions and other benefits and if nothing else gumming up earnest efforts to allay divides. Weary, irritated leaders, both religious and royal, “said, ‘You’re out, you’re out, you’re out,’” Rollo-Koster told me, “and he said, ‘No, I’m in, I’m in, I’m in.’”
Six centuries later, Donald Trump, twice impeached, is finishing his first full week as a dispatched post-president ensconced in his own Florida fortalice of Mar-a-Lago—committed by almost all accounts to do from his Palm Beach perch some modern-day variant of what Benedict pulled off for decades. The calamitous, lies-laced last few months of Trump’s White House term, and in particular the last few weeks, almost certainly will make this harder—the broad corporate blowback, social media silencing and historic (and ongoing) congressional condemnation piled atop his already looming legal, financial and reputational peril.
Even so, according to dozens of interviews with Trump associates, former staffers, biographers, Washington and Florida strategists and consultants, party functionaries, Palm Beach politicos and members of Mar-a-Lago, Trump is sure to try—to badger the man who beat him, to exact revenge against recalcitrant Republicans, to play a role of kingmaker and power broker, to return to his life-force rallies, to tease a 2024 comeback and to generally wreak what havoc he can on the public and body politic while enforcing fealty from his official (but contested) residence serving as his active home base and headquarters. And an early indicator of Trump’s undiminished influence: House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy—who’s gone in the span of half a month from saying Trump “bears responsibility” for the pro-Trump mob’s January 6 attack on the Capitol to saying “I don’t believe he provoked it” to asking for and receiving this week a patch-up lunchtime confab … at Mar-a-Lago.
“The new Trump Tower,” said former Trump political adviser Sam Nunberg.
“The MAGA capital,” said Christian Ziegler, the state Republican vice chair.
“He is going to essentially try to rule in exile,” said Rick Wilson, a former GOP operative in Tallahassee and a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, forecasting “a post-presidency like we’ve never seen.”
What will Trump’s post-presidency look like—and what will it do to America? There is no real precedent in the annals of the nation—and thus no real playbook for how to manage the kind of civic disruption it is likely to cause. But from history, and from people who’ve known him, it’s possible to stitch together a more-than-educated guess at what the country’s in for—a portrait of the nation’s first real anti-presidency.
The closest analog is probably the capitals of the Confederacy—and the self-evidently still unresolved aftermath of the Civil War—but Jefferson Davis never carried the legitimacy of having once been the president in the White House. And real former presidents, even the most compulsive limelight hounds, from Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, historically have made themselves scarce, consciously refraining from meddling in or even commenting on the affairs of their respective successors. Trump in this regard figures to be as contemptuous of convention going forward as he was in the past five-plus years. “We’re going to see something remarkably new,” said Princeton historian Kevin Kruse. “There will be,” added Lawrence Douglas, a professor at Amherst College and the author of a book about Trump’s endgame, “this kind of shadow ex-president.”
“There will be this kind of shadow ex-president.”
Lawrence Douglas
“Donald Trump’s not an ex-president—he’s a right-wing, nativist, revolutionary leader,” presidential historian Doug Brinkley told me recently. “He has a movement that is massive with global implications—that kind of revolutionary—and he took on the entire federal government of the United States. That kind of character doesn’t register as a typical ex-president.”
As unequaled as this is in the 245 years of the country’s existence, there are, however, rough parallels from other areas and eras around the world—tainted, brought-down kingpins, cast off to often island elsewheres. A defeated Napoleon was sent to Elba and then again to Saint Helena. Chiang Kai-shek went to Taiwan. Ferdinand Marcos made off to Hawaii. But none match the current moment with the resonance of Benedict XIII.
Manipulative and unabashed, he worked to cling to the trappings of power, sapped the sway of his counterpart popes and complicated attempts to mend the crippling split in the Roman Catholic Church called the Western Schism. Monarchs, clerics and other popes, his most potent adversaries, tried diplomacy, force and outright excommunication, ultimately stamping him a heretic—but they could never make the uncompromising Benedict altogether disappear. And there was an unexpected twist to Benedict’s intransigence, one Trump’s many high-ranking opponents would do well to heed: The harder and longer he held out, the more he was seen by some as a victim or a martyr, abidingly admired precisely because of his obstinacy and unwavering audacity.
“History never repeats itself; man always does,” said Voltaire, and Trump last Wednesday departed a rattled, armored Washington, pledging to “be back in some form.” Unwilling to acknowledge the legitimacy of his loss, he left town before the inauguration of Joe Biden—without having invited him to the White House, or congratulated him publicly, or even so much as mentioned his name. No longer roundly welcome in his native New York and all but chased from D.C., Trump jetted toward Florida, his habitual winter weekend getaway turned paramount political stomping grounds—the site of some of his biggest, most important wins; the bastion of a governor he helped get elected, two Republican senators and the House member who’s maybe his most fervent minion, plus a roster of media accessories and grassroots boosters; and America’s notoriously fact-flouting fantasy land, a hundred-year haven for hucksters and hustlers, outsiders, refugees and retirees, a sandy, sweaty Shangri-La of second chances, where Trump is now intent on concocting a papal-like court, a coterie of officeholders and wannabes, hangers-on and aides-de-camp, ring-kissers and the wholly beholden.
A little over a week ago, after Air Force One dutifully deposited the still-45th president on the tarmac at Palm Beach International Airport, Trump milked his last hour of presidential pomp. His final, full-on, lights-flashing motorcade snaked across the intracoastal waterway, past a BMW with a license plate that blared “LUV DJT,” past one sign wrongly saying he “WON!” and another asserting that “On the 8th Day God Created Donald Trump,” slowing to a crawl to let him bask in the clamor of shrieking, flag-flying, mostly maskless crowds at whom he pumped his fist. He pulled up to the front of his private, oceanfront club, greeted by a cluster of chanting fans. “Welcome home! Welcome home! Welcome home!”
The antipope of Mar-a-Lago, whose adherents have embraced him and his crusade with a religious, even cultlike ardor, got out of his shiny, fortified black Suburban, clapped, pointed and waved from the other side of a line of velvet ropes, and walked through the doors of his strange and very American sort of Holy See.
The Antipope of Mar-a-Lago - POLITICO
A good read
Last edited by Cujo; 30-01-2021 at 10:41 AM.
“If we stop testing right now we’d have very few cases, if any.” Donald J Trump.
Thanks Mod
Someone at MSNBC has a wicked sense of humour!
As it relates to trump, The Lincoln Project is suing Grampire...reading the notice they sent him is pretty good.
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/s...393090/photo/1
This is fucking hilarious, his lawyers have all quit. Looks like Giuliani's about to get his 20k a day (or beter still, tell Trump "you know, yeah, nah")
Donald Trump's impeachment defence in disarray as lead lawyers quit – reports | Donald Trump | The GuardianDonald Trump has abruptly parted ways with the two lead lawyers working on his defence for his Senate impeachment trial, a source familiar with the situation said, leaving the former US president’s legal strategy in disarray.
Butch Bowers and Deborah Barberi, two South Carolina lawyers, are no longer on Trump’s team, the source said, describing the move as a “mutual decision”.
Three other lawyers associated with the team, Josh Howard of North Carolina and Johnny Gasser and Greg Harris of South Carolina, also parted ways with Trump, another source said.
Impeachment guide: how will Donald Trump's second Senate trial unfold?
Read more
A third source said Trump had differences with Bowers over strategy ahead of the trial. The president is still contending that he was the victim of mass election fraud in the 3 November election won by Joe Biden.
It leaves Trump’s defence team in turmoil as he prepares for a trial starting on 9 February to consider an article of impeachment passed by the House of Representatives charging him with inciting his supporters to storm the US Capitol on 6 January.
It was unclear who would now represent the former president at the trial. His White House lawyers at his first impeachment trial last year, Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin, are not expected to be a part of the proceedings.
“The Democrats’ efforts to impeach a president who has already left office is totally unconstitutional and so bad for our country,” said Jason Miller, a Trump adviser.
“In fact, 45 senators have already voted that it is unconstitutional. We have done much work, but have not made a final decision on our legal team, which will be made shortly,” Miller said.
Forty-five Senate Republicans backed a failed effort last Tuesday to halt Trump’s impeachment trial, in a show of party unity that some cited as a clear sign he will not be convicted of inciting insurrection at the Capitol.
Here is a conservative that serves his people, not his party. Great to see this kind of honesty.
A sad day in Hollywood.
The Screen Actors Guild was holding a disciplinary meeting to consider revoking former President Trump's membership, but before SAG could make any announcements, Mr. Trump announced he's breaking up with them first. Mr. Trump sent a resignation letter to the organization's president, Gabrielle Carteris, writing "I no longer wish to be associated with your union."
Ms. Carteris
I write to you today regarding the so-called Disciplinary Committee hearing aimed at revoking my union membership. Who cares!
While I’m not familiar with your work, I’m very proud of my work on movies such as Home Alone 2, Zoolander and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; and television shows including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Saturday Night Live, and of course, one of the most successful shows in television history, The Apprentice – to name just a few!
I’ve also greatly helped the cable news television business (said to be a dying platform with not much time left until I got involved in politics), and created thousands of jobs at networks such as MSDNC and Fake News CNN, among many others.
Which brings me to your blatant attempt at free media attention to distract from your dismal record as a union. Your organization has done little for its members, and nothing for me – besides collecting dues and promoting dangerous un-American policies and ideas – as evident by your massive unemployment rates and lawsuits from celebrated actors, who even recorded a video asking, “Why isn’t the union fighting for me?”
These, however, are policy failures. Your disciplinary failures are even more egregious.
I no longer wish to be associated with your union.
As such, this letter is to inform you of my immediate resignation from SAG-AFTRA. You have done nothing for me.
Regards,
Donald J Trump
Trump resigns from Screen Actors Guild as union considers disciplinary action - CBS News
Last edited by beachbound; 05-02-2021 at 09:33 PM.
^^ LOL,
You forgot the SAG's response, it was fooking classic!!!!!!!!!!!
Simply two words.....
"Thank you"
The snibbler could not hold Trump accountable. What a deporable excuse for a human......
Although he voted to acquit the former president, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in remarks Saturday distanced himself from Trump and made clear he believed that Trump was solely to blame for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
"Jan. 6 was a disgrace," McConnell began. "Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president. They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth because he was angry he’d lost an election."
McConnell reminded those listening of his words on the floor last month in which he said the mob was "fed lies" and "provoked" by Trump.
"There's no question -- none -- that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president," he said.
You Make Your Own Luck
Trump is acquitted for a second time, after 5 die and over 140 police officers injured in a riot and insurrection in the Capitol. But Bill Clinton is charged and forced out of office for having an affair. How money - Murdoch and Wall Street money - corrupts democracy. As Obama said, we have to get money out of politics.
True, Bill Clinton was not convicted of his charges in a Dem controlled Senate. It was my understanding that he would leave the office early on condition that some dems in the senate would acquit him, who would have otherwise voted to convict. Clinton didn't fulfill his end of the deal, which is why some refer to him as slick willy.
Last edited by elche; 14-02-2021 at 10:04 PM.
Just like trump's presidency
Watch trump casino in Atlantic City implode.
Too bad he wasn't in it at the time.
This is worth a watch. Interesting thought that Trump may have sealed pardons ferreted away.
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