Most surprising thing from Trump era.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

Let me know what your snap review of the last four years were.  I think it would be interesting to try to list two things.  One based on raw score and one weighted by time.  The first is what is just the most fucked up thing.  The second is based on your understanding of the world at the time was was the most fucked up.  Because the normalization of crazy was real, so it took something really messed up at the end to move the needle.

 

Craziest thing:

The storming of the capitol.  Now that time is over and I can pick over everything on the same playing field, having a group of people so disassociated with reality cheering on a pea brained politician chanting "hang the VP" as they broke doors within feet of the lawmakers pretending an election was wrongly counted based on lawsuits that were written at a 4th grade level will go down in history.  That'll be in text books long after everything else he did was forgotten.

 

Craziest thing at the time:  I have a lot to choose from here and recall my jaw hitting the floor several times, but I don't want to put the other contenders so others will have a chance.

SCOTUS saying Muslim ban 3.0 was constitutional.  We allowed a law that almost quite literally said "Let's discriminate on the basis of religion" be deemed constitutional.  I would have bet 100-1 no court in our country would say it was okay.  It wasn't even cleverly done.  Trump was tweeting all along "This is a Muslim BAN".  Trump's lawyer was on TV saying "Trump called me and said he wanted a Muslim ban, but I should figure out how to make it sound legal."  I don't think you could get better evidence about the religious animus that was under the whole thing and everything else was just a smokescreen for that.  It had the added crazy bonus because you didn't really know at that time how far the corrupting influence of Trump had gotten.  Surely the Supreme Court, with their lifetime appointments, won't feel any need to appease this moron.  Nope.  Now, of course, the Muslim ban feels like just another day at the office because of the normalization of stupidity.

[Red Five 40665]

The first jaw-dropping moment to come to mind is when he suggested injecting bleach into the body to kill the virus. 

Now that I type that, siding with Russia over the US on live tv while standing next to Putin was pretty fucking amazing. 

[wildcat09 29258]

Agree on the Capitol. Anything besides that for absolute craziest thing is just a dumb hot take.  Craziest thing at the time? Probably their inability to actually repeal Obamacare. I think what made it unbelievable was that the Democrats actually practiced good politics about it and actually managed to peel off just enough votes in the Senate, and it showed that Mitch had weaknesses.

Fun fact about that SCOTUS decision, is it was the same week they released the gay wedding cake decision in which they found unconstitutional animus because a member of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission made an offhand comment about how freedom of religion has been used in the past to justify wrongful discrimination. That was unacceptable hostility to religious freedom, but the repeated pattern of statements from Trump demonstrating a much clearer animus against Muslims was perfectly fine.

This has been your daily reminder that the conservatives on the Supreme Court are 100% full of shit, 24/7.

[Dbeasy 14970]

Easy. Watching 30-40% of the population actually not figure out that Trump is a complete moron, liar, and grifter when he constantly claimed election fraud and there was none. Stunned at the blind spots people create once they’ve invested themselves into someone. 

[Thatguy 8505]

   I am going to leave the attack on the Cap out for obvious reasons.

 

1) People I have known for decades willing to dump lifetime friendships over a 4 year Presidency of a man that not only doesn't give a shit about them, but clearly is one of the worst human beings on the planet.

2) Racism making a historic comeback. It's hip to be a racist again.

3) How many dumb people there are. I have had a lot of conversations over the last 8 months and walked away completely dumbfounded that people could actual have an opinion like that. Case in point a conversation I had with a Hispanic employee of mine about the wall and Trump policies towards immigration.

[Lou 264]

What hit me first was him throwing a fit over the estimate of the crowd size at his inauguration and the back flips and lies told to make him feel better.  I think that might have been when they used the term "alternative facts".  It hit me hard how little interest he had in doing the job, it was like he got elected senior class president but what he really wanted to be was senior class favorite.

It was all down hill from there to the point of the Capitol being attacked.

Edited January 21, 2021 by Lou
Incomplete

[sasquatch69 583]

Just now, Thatguy said:

1) People I have known for decades willing to dump lifetime friendships over a 4 year Presidency of a man that not only doesn't give a shit about them, but clearly is one of the worst human beings on the planet.

I think this was the biggest surprise for me.  But, really, the Trump presidency just feels like the culmination of several things that have been building for years: 

(1) The right-wing media ecosystem that has somehow managed to hoodwink a sizable portion of the populace into thinking that other media are not only untrustworthy, but ENEMIES OF THUH STATE.

(2) A drop in basic civics knowledge (and participation) in our country.

(3) A rise in people who believe what they see on "reality TV" - which led to Trump's ascendant reputation thanks to The Apprentice.

I'm still just so surprised at how many folks (especially Christians) who really think he's a good man that had the country's best interests at heart.  It's just such a head-scratcher. 

[956 Worldwide 34444]

My most WTF moment was when he trotted out a poorly doctored NWS map to prove he was “right.” Just an all-time low. He went on national TV and was telling America “fuck you. I’ll lie to you and won’t even pretend to try to do it well. And you’ll take it.”

Totally unneeded, all of us what have been fine with “I misspoke, the storm is not threatening Alabama.” But he couldn’t do it.

Doctoring NWS maps about emergency situations is also a crime, so very on brand there as well.

Edited January 21, 2021 by 956 Worldwide

[Foosters 17734]

That 74 million Americans voted for a low-rent Ron Popeil facsimile.

[South Austin 52144]

I'm mostly surprised that we never heard the details of his beautiful, wonderful health care plan. 

[Macanudo 12928]

1 minute ago, Foosters said:

That 74 million Americans voted for a low-rent Ron Popeil facsimile.

Hey.   Leave Mr. Microphone out of this.

[Constant 6722]

I don’t know where it falls on the spectrum of surprises, but his argument here always stuck with me. Willing to shutdown the entire Federal government in order to get what he wanted. Pence sitting there like a buttplug on the nightstand not saying a single word. 
 

edit: His petulance is on full display. 

Edited January 21, 2021 by Constant

[Hookah Horns 3082]

I'm going to list the craziest individual moments other than 1/6. It's hard to rank macro things (the insane amount of admin turnover, tweets and lies, demonizing the media, the cult of personality, etc) alongside micro events.

Also not going to make separate lists for most shocking at the time and in retrospect. It's a good idea by OP, but I'm just putting them in order of most shocking at the time. 

Only the numbered ones are ranked, the rest are the rest of my top whatever number. 

1.  Choosing to lie about and cover up the covid realities to protect the economy and be a "cheerleader" 

2. Assaulting protestors to take church picture with upside down Bible

3. The Rudy, Sidney, and Jenna Show (inc. Four Seasons Landscaping) 

4. Bleach and Sunlight: Maybe Inject Them? 

5. Unmarked agents kidnapping protestors in Portland

6. Politicizing masks during a pandemic for no reason

7. Pressuring Pence to do the impossible and somehow declare him president

8. Trying to limit covid testing for the benefit of his stats

9. "Very fine people on both sides"

In no order:

+ Pushing hydroxychloroquine on the public

+ Leaving WHO during one of the worst pandemics ever 

+ Suggesting Joe Scarborough killed his wife

+ Liberate Georgia, et. al. 

+ Raffensberger call

+ School yard insults give way to love affair with Kim Jong Un, fizzles out 

+ Declaring war on the media on day 1 over the size of inaugural crowd; alternative facts

+ Intentionally separating families at the border and losing kids

+ Telling states to fend for themselves re: pandemic, immediately after saying his power is absolute 

+ When the looting starts the shooting starts

+ "They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

+ Saying McCain wasn't a hero because he was captured; disrespecting him even after he died

 

It's a shame we can't really edit posts because I'm going to remember stuff after I post this that I want to include. 

Edited January 21, 2021 by Hookah Horns

[Brisketexan 104628]

None of it.

Well, okay, a part of it.  I knew we had a lot of shitty, moronic, racist people (or some combination of any/all of those).  But I confess, I didn't realize how MANY of them we really had.  The existence didn't surprise me.  The volume did.

But otherwise.....everything that happened was pretty predictable.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

Charlottesville was the first time I felt real trauma from the Trump administration 

[Hookah Horns 3082]

7 minutes ago, Constant said:

I don’t know where it falls on the spectrum of surprises, but his argument here always stuck with me. Willing to shutdown the entire Federal government in order to get what he wanted. Pence sitting there like a buttplug on the nightstand not saying a single word. 

And this guy actually wrote a book called the Art of the Deal. 

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

That 75 million people watched the last 4 years unfold and decided they wanted more.

That’s so incredibly depressing.

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

The surprising thing to me is that all of the above things only made his supporters more fervent defenders. He never lost much support throughout, and the support he kept became more zealous with every bad act. 

Edited January 21, 2021 by Pato del Muerto

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

None of it. All of it. I'm out of cares to give. Let's just say it was a large snowball that kept rolling until it hit the Capitol building.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

7 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

That 75 million people watched the last 4 years unfold and decided they wanted more.

That’s so incredibly depressing.

Propaganda works and the forces behind Trump have the best machines.  

[Goredho 17349]

19 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

None of it.

Well, okay, a part of it.  I knew we had a lot of shitty, moronic, racist people (or some combination of any/all of those).  But I confess, I didn't realize how MANY of them we really had.  The existence didn't surprise me.  The volume did.

But otherwise.....everything that happened was pretty predictable.

 

18 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Charlottesville was the first time I felt real trauma from the Trump administration 

I was going to say Charlottesville, Trump’s response and that there were no political repercussions for him.  That revealed the depth and breadth of the appeasers and enablers.  Once that became clear, everything else could be predicted simply by assuming the worst of Trump, the GOP and their voters up and until the capitol insurrection.

[NorthLoop 14093]

The whole thing opened my eyes to just how shitty people in this country are.  Like Brisket said, I never imagined that half of this country were such terrible human beings, members of my family included. 

[lemonlime 5503]

 

30 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

None of it.

Well, okay, a part of it.  I knew we had a lot of shitty, moronic, racist people (or some combination of any/all of those).  But I confess, I didn't realize how MANY of them we really had.  The existence didn't surprise me.  The volume did.

But otherwise.....everything that happened was pretty predictable.

Exactly this.  45 was obvious from the beginning.  But the number of morons and racists in this country, especially the number of people who I used to respect and thought were intelligent, even if sometimes I disagreed with them on things, who were taken in by a bigoted conman still shocks me.

[RPM 26230]

22 minutes ago, Hookah Horns said:

And this guy actually wrote a book called the Art of the Deal. 

His name was on it, but he didn't write shit.

[Jiggy-Z 3432]

39 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

That 75 million people watched the last 4 years unfold and decided they wanted more.

That’s so incredibly depressing.

74,242,000 ish

Edited January 21, 2021 by Jiggy-Z
Accuracy

[Brisketexan 104628]

5 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

 

Exactly this.  45 was obvious from the beginning.  But the number of morons and racists in this country, especially the number of people who I used to respect and thought were intelligent, even if sometimes I disagreed with them on things, who were taken in by a bigoted conman still shocks me.

On the racist thing, an early statement I read rings true: Trump didn't just reveal how many of us were racist; he revealed that for a crapload of us, racism at the very least wasn't a deal-breaker.  The number of Americans who are either racist, or who are okay with racism, is a LOT higher than I'd thought it was.  I was naive.

[Walser 1107]

1 minute ago, Jiggy-Z said:

74,242,000

Just came here to post this. Trump immediately started saying 75m and everybody just ran with it.

[Mo Horn 8807]

That at the least he didn't start a war, and at worst drop a nuclear bomb somewhere. He had arguably the most powerful armed forces of all time under his control, and he didn't try to compensate for his small dick syndrome by bombing the hell out of something. He dropped one MOAB and everything else was pretty tame.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

Just now, Mo Horn said:

That at the least he didn't start a war

Debatable! 

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

1 hour ago, Lou said:

What hit me first was him throwing a fit over the estimate of the crowd size at his inauguration and the back flips and lies told to make him feel better.  I think that might have been when they used the term "alternative facts".  It hit me hard how little interest he had in doing the job, it was like he got elected senior class president but what he really wanted to be was senior class favorite.

It was all down hill from there to the point of the Capitol being attacked.

Yeah, it was Kellyanne Conway who introduced us to “alternative facts.” And Sean Spicer introduced himself as Press Secretary by insisting, falsely, that it was the largest inauguration crowd in history. But the crowd size wasn’t the first blatantly obvious lie for no good reason of the Trump presidency. The first was that it didn’t rain during his inauguration ceremony. It rained. We all saw it. We all saw Dubya struggling to put on his poncho. But Donald claimed it was sunny and the rain held off until after the ceremony as if by some act of God.

[Jiggy-Z 3432]

11 minutes ago, NorthLoop said:

The whole thing opened my eyes to just how shitty people in this country are.  Like Brisket said, I never imagined that half of this country were such terrible human beings, members of my family included. 

Yeah, after Trump won there was definitely a white power thing going on, but it felt like a vibe or an attitude to me, nothing overt in the people I dealt with....until George Floyd.  I could not believe the shit that was coming out of people's mouths.  It was like Blazing Saddles without the satire.

 

[Guest Lobo]

For the record, it isn't half.  35% of all adult Americans voted for Trump.  The country is not as fargone as some of you believe.  

I've been stewing on this question for the last 3 years and I'll stew on it for another decade.  So much I just did not think was possible.  But it was the denial that so many fellow Americans displayed---and proudly, people I thought were measured Republicans and Independents that will baffle me for the rest of my life.  

Here's more of a character trait that I don't get and probably never will.  You can think he's honest, conservative, caring, thoughtful, charming, eloquent, smart, successful, a mastermind of a politician...whatever.  I see how people were duped and how they can't ever admit they were wrong because it reveals something about themselves (25% of Madoff victims didn't press charges because doing so would be tacit admission to others that they were stupid).  But the one that just blows me away is how so many Trumpers think he was the picture of masculinity and strength.  Other than being tall, womanizing (which he had to pay for in vast sums of money), and speaking loudly and profanely...he exhibited none of the other classic characteristics of male masculinity.  Now I know that list is long since proven antiquated and from a bygone era...BUT THAT'S MY FUCKING POINT.  If we know his followers cling to archaic and dated systems of gender roles and traits...shouldn't he actually exhibit them to give them that latch on which to hold.  He was operating in the 2010's with a 1950's alter-ego that didn't actually have anything to do with either era.  

A guy trying to project 1940's-1980's masculinity should have some of those characteristics.  And he didn't.  And yet they all think he did.  How the fuck did he do that?  That's the one that baffles me?  He got women to latch onto his biceps and be rescued and he got gun-toting, truck-driving wanna-be alphas to worship the ground he walked on despite not really offering either of them anything "manly."  That's the weird one to me.  It's right up there with Liberachi and Rock Hudson being pussy-magnets.  How is it possible to do in real time?  

Edited January 21, 2021 by Lobo

[gsoda3 3236]

in no particular order.  i can't rank these.  

 

1.)  that he won.  that people actually watched the primaries and the generals and thought "i should vote for this guy."

2.)  the "we have this virus under control" schtick.  almost a year ago to the day he said "we have one case in the US but it'll be gone soon and we'll be fine".

3.)  proud boys - stand back and stand by.

4.)  children in cages at the border.

5.)  kim jong un.  

6.)  trump siding with putin on the dead soldiers.

7.)  his reaction to the storming of the capitol.

[Red Five 40665]

3 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Yeah, it was Kellyanne Conway who introduced us to “alternative facts.” And Sean Spicer introduced himself as Press Secretary by insisting, falsely, that it was the largest inauguration crowd in history. But the crowd size wasn’t the first blatantly obvious lie for no good reason of the Trump presidency. The first was that it didn’t rain during his inauguration ceremony. It rained. We all saw it. We all saw Dubya struggling to put on his poncho. But Donald claimed it was sunny and the rain held off until after the ceremony as if by some act of God.

Around that same time, Stephen Miller yelled into a camera "Do not question the powers of the president!". Good times. 

[Updawg 2261]

None of it. All of it. I'm out of cares to give. Let's just say it was a large snowball that kept rolling until it hit the Capitol building.

Yep. The first day trying to show how large the crowd of the inauguration was one of the first stops on the crazy train

My favorite is the four seasons fuckup

[Born to Run 6568]

The whole thing opened my eyes to just how shitty people in this country are.  Like Brisket said, I never imagined that half of this country were such terrible human beings, members of my family included. 

100 % this.

And the fact that so many people enthusiastically voted for him after 4 years of just abject disfunction, lies, failure, fraud and treason. His handling of Covid alone Should have been enough to open many eyes.

It wasn't, and I have to accept that many family and friends are just awful awful people. Selfish, scared, racist, willfully ignorant, assholes.

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

6 minutes ago, gsoda3 said:

1.)  that he won.  that people actually watched the primaries and the generals and thought "i should vote for this guy."

I was going to put this as my number one.  Absolute jaw drop on election night.  It wasn’t really because of racism we’re all the other stuff we talk about now. It was just so blatantly obvious that we were going to have to choose a leader between two candidates, and one person was competent and one person was incompetent. One person knew what was going on, one person just made it up on the fly. One person had experience one person had nothing. One person had worked in public service before, one person had never done anything but for himself.  I figured a 10 point win, at least, for Hillary.  
 

turns out I absolutely do not have the pulse of the nation when it comes to what criteria they use on selecting a president.

[B00M 6280]

7 minutes ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

one person just made it up on the fly.

Much of America can strongly relate to that

[LurkingHorn 1049]

I think the Capitol has to be first on everyone's list, right? That's just something that does not happen.

Aside from that, the most jaw-dropping moment for me was Charlottesville. That was when I first realized how much he emboldened and defended white supremacists. I knew he was going to be a mediocre at best president going into it, but that was my first true wake up call to how bad this was going to get. Not much was surprising after that for me. 

[Pig Bellmont 8692]

The most surprising thing to me is that apparently the President can abuse his office and government for his own personal financial gain and almost nobody gave a shit. He even almost got re-elected. 

[Hookah Horns 3082]

2 hours ago, Lou said:

What hit me first was him throwing a fit over the estimate of the crowd size at his inauguration and the back flips and lies told to make him feel better.  I think that might have been when they used the term "alternative facts".  It hit me hard how little interest he had in doing the job, it was like he got elected senior class president but what he really wanted to be was senior class favorite.

It was all down hill from there to the point of the Capitol being attacked.

It's wild rewatching this and realizing how much this first contact with the press set the tone for the next 4 years of insanity. The Trump circus didn't waste any time warming up. 

 

[Hookah Horns 3082]

4 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

The most surprising thing to me is that apparently the President can abuse his office and government for his own personal financial gain and almost nobody gave a shit. He even almost got re-elected. 

It's also hard to wrap my head around the fact that, for a whole lot of people, it wasn't because they liked Trump at all or approved of his performance. It was because bogeymen like "socialism," "defunding the police," and AOC were the greater evil. 

[Guadaloopy 10926]

The inauguration crowd debate raised an eyebrow.  But Charlottesville made my eyes pop.  Everything after that was unsurprising.  

[Ghost of LL 15492]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

None of it.

Well, okay, a part of it.  I knew we had a lot of shitty, moronic, racist people (or some combination of any/all of those).  But I confess, I didn't realize how MANY of them we really had.  The existence didn't surprise me.  The volume did.

But otherwise.....everything that happened was pretty predictable.

I don't think there was any part of Trump's behavior that actually surprised me.  From fairly early on, he was easily identifiable as having narcissistic personality disorder with bipolar tendencies.  As soon as you identify that, then it's pretty easy to predict what he's going to do.

The thing that surprised me was the rampant political malpractice committed by the Republican Party.  One of the hallmarks of a narcissist is that they will ultimately burn it all down.  So the insurrection wasn't a surprise.  Trump screwing over Loeffler and Perdue in Georgia with his rigged-election claims wasn't a surprise.  His floating ideas of a Trump political party wasn't a surprise.  Of course he did all that.  It's exactly what a narcissist would do.

What is a surprise is that Republicans never saw it coming.  And beyond that, they apparently didn't realize that trading high-turnout suburban voters for low-turnout rubes and morons was a bad play.

They had opportunities to off-load Trump.  The could've come together early in the primary and gotten behind another candidate (as the Democrats did with Biden).  They could've bailed on his ass after the Access Hollywood tape.  I'm still amazed that they let their party be hijacked by a guy whose corruption was exceeded only by his stupidity.

I said in 2017 that the GOP had nine months to impeach and convict Trump.  If they did that, they could install Pence and do everything that they really wanted to do.  The evangelicals would've gone along with it.  They'd still have gotten their tax cuts and their judges.  They maybe would've gotten Obamacare repealed.  And at the end of it, they wouldn't have had a groundswell of anti-Trump anger that lost them the House in 2018 and lost them the Senate and White House in 2020.

And damned if Trump didn't give them the opportunity when he fired Comey . . . and then told Lester Holt that it was because of the Russia investigation.  It's just amazing.  They could've walked away from Trump right there and saved their party.  And they didn't do it.

It will never not amaze me.

46 minutes ago, NorthLoop said:

The whole thing opened my eyes to just how shitty people in this country are.  Like Brisket said, I never imagined that half of this country were such terrible human beings, members of my family included. 

Yeah.  That was surprising.  I'm just always going to remember 2020 as the year that I learned to loathe my countrymen.  It's not just Trump.  It's the entire Covid thing and the "Blue Lives Matter" bullshit.

Trump is a symptom of an underlying disease of selfish and self-absorbed ignorance that has infected the American people.  And it's just sad.

[Francisco 2.0 32342]

That we as a nation were literally a handful of people, maybe a couple of dozen total scattered in various states, along with Pence, that kept this from falling completely apart between November 3 and today.  That so few people potentially kept our system of government intact should give everyone pause.  If everyone in Georgia gets weak and succumbs to Trump, who knows where things lead.  Or the person in Michigan.   You get the idea.

That, to me is the most surprising thing from the Trump years.  That it only takes a small group of people, operating without scruples, ethics, integrity, whatever....can just fuck it all to hell.  And almost half the country went along with it.

 

Edited January 21, 2021 by Francisco 2.0

[ChuckNorrisActionJeans 2659]

Wholeheartedly agree with all that's been covered.

I'd add the fact that absolutely nothing came of Trump's utter indifference to the Russians putting bounties on our soldiers.

[Brandywine 1313]

I agree with pretty much everything mentioned. But I was most surprised by how unprepared for the job he was. And how he tried so hard to pull the wool over peoples eyes to cover up how ill prepared he was and how much he seriously didn’t care.  It was all entertainment to him and to his followers. They allowed him to get away with so many things that they criticized others for. 
 

And the other thing is how the Christian Right fell so in love with him. Someone who has never shown any interest in faith or religion. 

Edited January 21, 2021 by Brandywine

[GreenspointTexas 9567]

Not counting the cap attack:

 

The fact that he knew IN FEBRUARY that COVID was airborne. 
 

Not only did he lie to the public, but he encouraged people to not wear masks.

 

 

He should be jailed for years for that abomination alone

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

7 minutes ago, ChuckNorrisActionJeans said:

Wholeheartedly agree with all that's been covered.

I'd add the fact that absolutely nothing came of Trump's utter indifference to the Russians putting bounties on our soldiers.

Trump was in Putin’s pocket the whole time. Remember when it was reported that Jared Kushner was trying to set up a back channel line of communication with the Kremlin? I’ll bet he was successful.

[B00M 6280]

3 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Not only did he lie to the public, but he encouraged people to not wear masks.

He should be jailed for years for that abomination alone

Trump gifts that just keeps on giving: the politicization of masks and comparing it to a flu.