Most surprising thing from Trump era.

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

4 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

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

A week before the election he was still claiming that COVID talk would disappear on Nov. 4. 

[DigglerontheHoof 21065]

I knew trump was a nitwit and egomaniac coming into this.   However, I didn't know he was a malignant narcissist.  I really didn't pay a ton of attention to the 2016 race b/c I knew I wasn't going to vote for either candidate (a mistake I now acknowledge).  

But I thought most of his election rhetoric was just trying to get elected.  I really thought the seriousness of the position would curb some of his worse tendencies, once he got into the office.  The nanosecond the inauguration crowd exaggeration bullshit came out, I realized I was really, really wrong.  And, it just got more fucked by the day.  

[Red Five 40666]

He claimed that windmills cause cancer and we're on page 2 without it being mentioned yet. 

[SydneyCarton 47886]

That we're still here. 

[Guest Lobo]

Just now, Red Five said:

He claimed that windmills cause cancer and we're on page 2 without it being mentioned yet. 

Erroneous!  He said living near the windmill would cause cancer.  Chernobyl itself doesn't cause cancer.  Living near Chernobyl causes the cancer.  Big difference. 

[Chewbacca 7730]

Member when he said he could shoot someone and not lose any support?  I member.  I thought he was crazy.  Turns out his supporters are crazier than he is.  He's 100% accurate with that assessment.  And it's terrifying what he has exposed lies under the surface in America.

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

He suggested that nuclear weapons would be an effective deterrent against hurricanes.

He canceled a trip to Denmark because they refused to sell Greenland to the U.S.

He colluded with Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign, covered it up, successfully obstructed justice during the investigation, and installed an attorney general to misrepresent the findings of the investigation to the American people. And he didn’t even get impeached for it!

Maybe I should’ve listed that last one first. 

[David Dennison 18661]

It's still shocking to me that he was the president.

I can't believe 74 million Americans voted for him.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23359]

7 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

He colluded with Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign, covered it up, successfully obstructed justice during the investigation, and installed an attorney general to misrepresent the findings of the investigation to the American people. And he didn’t even get impeached for it!

He pardoned his co-conspirators too without consequences.  

The Trump crime spree from the 2016 election to the insurrection was a breathtaking run of nonstop law breaking in broad daylight. 

Trump brought out the idealist in me in that anything is possible. 

[strangulation! 1709]

that he saw the end of it. how he didn't catch a bullet despite over half the country despising him for so long is shocking. how he didn't stroke out our succumb to covid/syphilis/orange paint suffocation is also surprising.

[27-25 2040]

2 hours ago, Hookah Horns said:

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

Well, his ghostwriter did anyway.

[Asithappens 974]

52 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Erroneous!  He said living near the windmill would cause cancer.  Chernobyl itself doesn't cause cancer.  Living near Chernobyl causes the cancer.  Big difference. 

Not that's the kind of 4-D chess I'm going to miss.

[Asithappens 974]

34 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

It's still shocking to me that he was the president.

I can't believe 74 million Americans voted for him.

You can't believe that? 

Oh, you glorious, naive, magnificent son of a bitch. 

[Biff Tannen 45499]

4 hours ago, sasquatch69 said:

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

Luckily, I think this has skyrocketed, at least for the people who are anti-dotard/anti-republican shitheads.

[Biff Tannen 45499]

1 hour ago, Lobo said:

Erroneous!  He said living near the windmill would cause cancer.  Chernobyl itself doesn't cause cancer.  Living near Chernobyl causes the cancer.  Big difference. 

Ah, important safety tip.  Thanks Lobo.

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

There was also that first overseas trip in 2017 to Saudi Arabia when we learned just how easily authoritarian regimes could manipulate him by stroking his fragile ego.

That was batshit fucking crazy. 

[Mez2 4021]

i'm surprised no one tried to shoot his monkey ass

[TexasEd 8064]

3 hours ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

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

That’s so incredibly depressing.

74

75 was another lie

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

3 minutes ago, TexasEd said:

74

75 was another lie

does that somehow make my point less relevant? i think that's the third correction...75MM versus 74.2MM...ok?

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

1917

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

Did you know Lincoln was a Republican? Many people don’t know that. 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23359]

Take the guns first, then due process.

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

1 minute ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Take the guns first, then due process.

And he’s not afraid of the NRA unlike other Republicans. Because he’s rich and doesn’t need their money. 

[Thatguy 8507]

3 hours 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.

Well..... I guess we fucked around and found out.....

[Guest Lobo]

2 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

And he’s not afraid of the NRA unlike other Republicans. Because he’s rich and doesn’t need their money. 

He wasn't afraid of the NRA because he didn't even know who the fuck they were prior to taking office.  Obviously the secret service would have never let him anywhere near a weapon of any kind, but if he had been...the man is so firearms-illiterate...I promise you that it would have been another eclipse situation.  Just like the sun, he would have stared right into the fucking barrel like a fucking idiot while saying to the gathered crowd, "A lot of people are saying I'm an expert marksman."  

[David Dennison 18661]

11 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Take the guns first, then due process.

That would be something to see.

[Surly Bevo 24696]

LOL at all you who didn't realize there were so many shitty people out there.  Didn't any of you all go to church growing up?

Edited January 21, 2021 by Surly Bevo

[staboner 4959]

the only thing surprising to me was half you mofos addicted to outrage

stabone -

some other posters - how can we possibly ignore this shit! we need to show everyone how terrible he is

stabone-

surly brain collective - OMG i feel so much better after his twitter is shut down.

stabone -

 

[Dirk X West 772]

I guess I thought that at some point during his tenure as president he would do something, maybe even just accidentally or as an unintended consequence of what he was really trying to do, that would help non-rich Americans.  Leaving aside purely partisan stuff, like his judges, I don't know that he ever did.  He remarkably made everything that he touched worse - more dysfunctional, more unfair, more cruel, more destructive.

[Brisketexan 104631]

Just now, Dirk X West said:

I guess I thought that at some point during his tenure as president he would do something, maybe even just accidentally or as an unintended consequence of what he was really trying to do, that would help non-rich Americans.  Leaving aside purely partisan stuff, like his judges, I don't know that he ever did.  He remarkably made everything that he touched worse - more dysfunctional, more unfair, more cruel, more destructive.

Because of these two simple facts:

1) he is such an insane narcissist, that EVERYTHING has to be idea, which means that anything anyone else suggests is rejected because it's not his idea.

2) with respect to anything and everything, someone advised, or said, or wrote some version of "the President should do [the right and sane thing]."

Thus, once someone suggested the right thing (#2), he rejected it and did something different, because every action has to be his idea (#1).  It's that fucking bassackwards....that has been our national policy for the past 4 years -- effectively "whatever any smart person suggests, do the opposite."

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

5 minutes ago, Dirk X West said:

I guess I thought that at some point during his tenure as president he would do something, maybe even just accidentally or as an unintended consequence of what he was really trying to do, that would help non-rich Americans.  Leaving aside purely partisan stuff, like his judges, I don't know that he ever did.  He remarkably made everything that he touched worse - more dysfunctional, more unfair, more cruel, more destructive.

The cruelty was the point. 

[staboner 4959]

6 minutes ago, Dirk X West said:

I guess I thought that at some point during his tenure as president he would do something, maybe even just accidentally or as an unintended consequence of what he was really trying to do, that would help non-rich Americans.  Leaving aside purely partisan stuff, like his judges, I don't know that he ever did.  He remarkably made everything that he touched worse - more dysfunctional, more unfair, more cruel, more destructive.

he did pardon Jack Johnson, so there is that

[Beantown Express 2.0 6555]

I am shocked that in the last few days Trump didn't somehow move trillions of dollars to his personal bank account and then pardon himself for stealing trillions of dollars from the US government.  We could then listen to Dershowitz on Fox News tell us how what Trump did in stealing trillions of dollars is legal and the constitution says so.

[TexasEd 8064]

1 minute ago, WhatTheBuck said:

The cruelty was the point. 

The cruelty was a means towards divisiveness which was a means to the campaign donations.

 

[TexasEd 8064]

3 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

I am shocked that in the last few days Trump didn't somehow move trillions of dollars to his personal bank account and then pardon himself for stealing trillions of dollars from the US government.  We could then listen to Dershowitz on Fox News tell us how what Trump did in stealing trillions of dollars is legal and the constitution says so.

Are you sure he didn't?

[Mole 4320]

2 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

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.

The "Blue Lives Matter" flags came in handy while they were beating cops.

2 hours ago, Brandywine said:

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. 

The surprising thing for me wasn't really one thing, but the gradual revealing of character that was hidden by the relative ease of life prior to 2020. Church and faith is deeply important to me. Much of my social circle would be considered Christian Right. Prior to 2020, I generally considered the church a morally stabilizing force in this country, at least in the abstract. Many church people might do terrible things, but the faith itself was intertwined with the moral arc towards justice. It's one thing to have a somewhat abstract discussion about gay wedding cakes when there are perfectly good bakers just around the corner raking in the money from the gay wedding market; it's another thing to encourage the spread of death and suffering, and try to talk down to those who would rather not hurt others. If I heard one more comment about fearing God and not death...

2020 saw such spiritualizing of cruelty, selfishness, and indifference to spreading death and suffering by white evangelicals. It's unfathomable to think about any large group acting like this. It totally shocked and shook me. Honestly, I don't know what Christian community looks like for me and my family post-COVID. Spending Sundays at the park feeding the ducks has been far more spiritually fulfilling and done more good for the world than some of the sociopathic Sunday sermons I've heard from people close to me. I don't know how to reconcile these things. This transformation in me has been surprising and it stems from the white church's steadfast association with Trump.

As far as specific events, the terrorist attack was nuts, but honestly not too surprising, since they were pretty openly stating their plan for months. I mean the coup started before the election pretty openly and was plainly articulated by Trump sometime after midnight on election night.

The massive break from reality that occurred over the past 4 years or so was pretty shocking. People who always seemed kind and thinking just departed into an insane alternate reality. It was a lot to take in.

 

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

1 minute ago, TexasEd said:

The cruelty was a means towards divisiveness which was a means to the campaign donations.

It’s more pathological than that. Trump believes that he can’t be winning unless someone else is losing. He can’t feel victorious unless someone else is suffering. That’s been his business philosophy since long before he got into politics and grifting campaign donations. 

[Brisketexan 104631]

4 minutes ago, Mole said:

The "Blue Lives Matter" flags came in handy while they were beating cops.

The surprising thing for me wasn't really one thing, but the gradual revealing of character that was hidden by the relative ease of life prior to 2020. Church and faith is deeply important to me. Much of my social circle would be considered Christian Right. Prior to 2020, I generally considered the church a morally stabilizing force in this country, at least in the abstract. Many church people might do terrible things, but the faith itself was intertwined with the moral arc towards justice. It's one thing to have a somewhat abstract discussion about gay wedding cakes when there are perfectly good bakers just around the corner raking in the money from the gay wedding market; it's another thing to encourage the spread of death and suffering, and try to talk down to those who would rather not hurt others. If I heard one more comment about fearing God and not death...

2020 saw such spiritualizing of cruelty, selfishness, and indifference to spreading death and suffering by white evangelicals. It's unfathomable to think about any large group acting like this. It totally shocked and shook me. Honestly, I don't know what Christian community looks like for me and my family post-COVID. Spending Sundays at the park feeding the ducks has been far more spiritually fulfilling and done more good for the world than some of the sociopathic Sunday sermons I've heard from people close to me. I don't know how to reconcile these things. This transformation in me has been surprising and it stems from the white church's steadfast association with Trump.

As far as specific events, the terrorist attack was nuts, but honestly not too surprising, since they were pretty openly stating their plan for months. I mean the coup started before the election pretty openly and was plainly articulated by Trump sometime after midnight on election night.

The massive break from reality that occurred over the past 4 years or so was pretty shocking. People who always seemed kind and thinking just departed into an insane alternate reality. It was a lot to take in.

 

There is a genuine, hard schism, often WITHIN denominations -- of a Christian right, and a Christian left.

The Catholic church is dealing with a hard one.  Pope Francis is a more left voice, and he's getting regularly assailed and contradicted by conservative catholic voices (many of them American).

The PCUSA Presbyterian church has seen many congregations flat-out leave the denomination over the left/right split.  Methodists too, Episcopal church too.

There are a lot of good Christians out there, living hard Way of the Gospels.  But they are drowned out by the loud, angry, and often cruel voices of the Christian Right, which is a political movement more than it is a religious one.  Religion is an excuse, not a reason.  It's horrific.  The worst enemy Christianity has is "Christians."  And this admin made that divide STARK.

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

1 hour ago, Chewbacca said:

Member when he said he could shoot someone and not lose any support?  I member.  I thought he was crazy.  Turns out his supporters are crazier than he is.  He's 100% accurate with that assessment.  And it's terrifying what he has exposed lies under the surface in America.

It’s about the only true thing he’s said in the past 60 months, if not longer. 

[Brisketexan 104631]

3 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

It’s more pathological than that. Trump believes that he can’t be winning unless someone else is losing. He can’t feel victorious unless someone else is suffering. That’s been his business philosophy since long before he got into politics and grifting campaign donations. 

Also this.  He sees all of life, the whole world, as a zero-sum gain.  You cannot be gaining unless someone else is losing.  It's how he operates in his life, his business, everything.  It's a twisted worldview, at odds with any rational view of humanity.  There is NO "win-win" for him.  There is no win unless the other guy loses.  Which is so insanely short sighted and destructive.....it's fucking sick.

[The Royal We 3066]

7 minutes ago, Mole said:

The "Blue Lives Matter" flags came in handy while they were beating cops.

The surprising thing for me wasn't really one thing, but the gradual revealing of character that was hidden by the relative ease of life prior to 2020. Church and faith is deeply important to me. Much of my social circle would be considered Christian Right. Prior to 2020, I generally considered the church a morally stabilizing force in this country, at least in the abstract. Many church people might do terrible things, but the faith itself was intertwined with the moral arc towards justice. It's one thing to have a somewhat abstract discussion about gay wedding cakes when there are perfectly good bakers just around the corner raking in the money from the gay wedding market; it's another thing to encourage the spread of death and suffering, and try to talk down to those who would rather not hurt others. If I heard one more comment about fearing God and not death...

2020 saw such spiritualizing of cruelty, selfishness, and indifference to spreading death and suffering by white evangelicals. It's unfathomable to think about any large group acting like this. It totally shocked and shook me. Honestly, I don't know what Christian community looks like for me and my family post-COVID. Spending Sundays at the park feeding the ducks has been far more spiritually fulfilling and done more good for the world than some of the sociopathic Sunday sermons I've heard from people close to me. I don't know how to reconcile these things. This transformation in me has been surprising and it stems from the white church's steadfast association with Trump.

As far as specific events, the terrorist attack was nuts, but honestly not too surprising, since they were pretty openly stating their plan for months. I mean the coup started before the election pretty openly and was plainly articulated by Trump sometime after midnight on election night.

The massive break from reality that occurred over the past 4 years or so was pretty shocking. People who always seemed kind and thinking just departed into an insane alternate reality. It was a lot to take in.

 

This is pretty much the gist of it for me too.  I was willing to give him a chance, but that chance expired as soon as he spent the first days of his presidency bickering about the size of the inauguration crowd and banning the parks department from posting actual pictures of the crowd.  I was pretty sure we were proper fucked right then and there.

I don't have a strong faith like you do Mole, but I grew up in the Catholic church and have close family members and others that I'm close to who have always held themselves up as "people of God."  I don't know that I'll ever understand how they rationalized their support for this shit stain.  And not just "for the judges" or whatever other policy they supported, but were full-throated defenders of his actions, even when they were very obviously hateful/harmful/not Christ-like.  It's really been a hard thing for me to stomach and has done permanent damage to relationships with people that I previously admired.

[gmr548 16517]

I was most surprised by how unsurprising everything was.

[TwiceHorn 31289]

2 hours ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

I knew trump was a nitwit and egomaniac coming into this.   However, I didn't know he was a malignant narcissist.  I really didn't pay a ton of attention to the 2016 race b/c I knew I wasn't going to vote for either candidate (a mistake I now acknowledge).  

But I thought most of his election rhetoric was just trying to get elected.  I really thought the seriousness of the position would curb some of his worse tendencies, once he got into the office.  The nanosecond the inauguration crowd exaggeration bullshit came out, I realized I was really, really wrong.  And, it just got more fucked by the day.  

Yep.  I had dismissed him as a blowhard at some point in the 90s.  I never had occasion or desire to know if that was pathological or just egomania.

I wrongly assumed that after the election rhetoric, he would settle down into something presidential, if peppered with absurd populist rantings.  And I had a tendency to dismiss a lot of the things he said until his actions started matching up with his words, and even "exceeding" them.

Although I loathed him, I had no idea what a really sick fuck he was and is.

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

[Hugo Stiglitz 23359]

14 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

There is a genuine, hard schism, often WITHIN denominations -- of a Christian right, and a Christian left.

The Catholic church is dealing with a hard one.  Pope Francis is a more left voice, and he's getting regularly assailed and contradicted by conservative catholic voices (many of them American).

The PCUSA Presbyterian church has seen many congregations flat-out leave the denomination over the left/right split.  Methodists too, Episcopal church too.

There are a lot of good Christians out there, living hard Way of the Gospels.  But they are drowned out by the loud, angry, and often cruel voices of the Christian Right, which is a political movement more than it is a religious one.  Religion is an excuse, not a reason.  It's horrific.  The worst enemy Christianity has is "Christians."  And this admin made that divide STARK.

The intersection of Christianity and politics is fascinating.  Perhaps because the faith is based around a political execution of a radical dissident and the universal symbol of the religion is a torture device of the government. 

[Mole 4320]

27 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

There is a genuine, hard schism, often WITHIN denominations -- of a Christian right, and a Christian left.

The Catholic church is dealing with a hard one.  Pope Francis is a more left voice, and he's getting regularly assailed and contradicted by conservative catholic voices (many of them American).

The PCUSA Presbyterian church has seen many congregations flat-out leave the denomination over the left/right split.  Methodists too, Episcopal church too.

There are a lot of good Christians out there, living hard Way of the Gospels.  But they are drowned out by the loud, angry, and often cruel voices of the Christian Right, which is a political movement more than it is a religious one.  Religion is an excuse, not a reason.  It's horrific.  The worst enemy Christianity has is "Christians."  And this admin made that divide STARK.

The Phil Vischer (of VeggieTales fame) podcast has been pretty cathartic for me. One point that keeps coming up is the model of the black church, since their experience of alienation has been far more salient and is centuries old. My alienation is relatively recent and pretty abstract, except for all of the recent dying.

If you believe the Gospels, the church should be full of terrible people, since the sick are the ones who need healing. Church should be a place for terrible people to at least transform into terrible people doing good for the world. That's the stabilizing moral influence that I've always valued. The problem is when the sickness comes from and is spread by the church. I think it's pretty widespread.

43 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

I am shocked that in the last few days Trump didn't somehow move trillions of dollars to his personal bank account and then pardon himself for stealing trillions of dollars from the US government.  We could then listen to Dershowitz on Fox News tell us how what Trump did in stealing trillions of dollars is legal and the constitution says so.

A week ago, I figured that Rudy was going to be on Fox News this morning explaining how stealing the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives meant that we were now under British rule. I was sure that he would be calling Trump the king of the American Colonies while citing the Magna Carta and some 1920s law written to allow klansmen to seek damages from their victims for minor injuries incurred at lynchings. I was also sure that we would all just shrug our shoulders as law dogs call it an open legal question while we wait for the Archbishop of Canterbury to weigh in on if Trump would be the absolute ruler of the American Colonies or if the Queen would get the right of prima nocta. I guess I'm now surprised how sane a post-Trump world seems to be.

Edited January 21, 2021 by Mole

[RPM 26230]

Honestly for me it was the level of virulent racism that rose to power. I saw small (well not that small) signs when The Voting Rights Act was gutted, corporations were given citizen status, the Bundy standoffs... it was just the leak that let you know the dam is doomed and the only thing you can do is warn everyone downstream before it's too late. Enter COVID-19 and a half million ONE FUCKING HALF MILLION innocent Americans are dead. Remind me how many people died on 9/11 and didn't we start 2 fucking wars over that or am I missing something? Hang this obese, syphilis riddled, traitor from the highest yardarm available.

Edited January 21, 2021 by RPM

[Js1 85115]

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

And he’s not afraid of the NRA unlike other Republicans. Because he’s rich and doesn’t need their money. 

He didn’t need the NRA to do the Russian money laundering Bc he just accepted Russia’s help directly. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

35 minutes ago, Mole said:

The "Blue Lives Matter" flags came in handy while they were beating cops.

The surprising thing for me wasn't really one thing, but the gradual revealing of character that was hidden by the relative ease of life prior to 2020. Church and faith is deeply important to me. Much of my social circle would be considered Christian Right. Prior to 2020, I generally considered the church a morally stabilizing force in this country, at least in the abstract. Many church people might do terrible things, but the faith itself was intertwined with the moral arc towards justice. It's one thing to have a somewhat abstract discussion about gay wedding cakes when there are perfectly good bakers just around the corner raking in the money from the gay wedding market; it's another thing to encourage the spread of death and suffering, and try to talk down to those who would rather not hurt others. If I heard one more comment about fearing God and not death...

2020 saw such spiritualizing of cruelty, selfishness, and indifference to spreading death and suffering by white evangelicals. It's unfathomable to think about any large group acting like this. It totally shocked and shook me. Honestly, I don't know what Christian community looks like for me and my family post-COVID. Spending Sundays at the park feeding the ducks has been far more spiritually fulfilling and done more good for the world than some of the sociopathic Sunday sermons I've heard from people close to me. I don't know how to reconcile these things. This transformation in me has been surprising and it stems from the white church's steadfast association with Trump.

As far as specific events, the terrorist attack was nuts, but honestly not too surprising, since they were pretty openly stating their plan for months. I mean the coup started before the election pretty openly and was plainly articulated by Trump sometime after midnight on election night.

The massive break from reality that occurred over the past 4 years or so was pretty shocking. People who always seemed kind and thinking just departed into an insane alternate reality. It was a lot to take in.

 

Thank you. Thank you for expressing your thoughts here as that has been something our family has struggled with in a similar fashion. The intertwining of faith and political culture has been growing, but the last four years, and as you mentioned this past year led us on an inward spiritual journey as the outward one was in such contrast to what we'd been taught. I think @Brisketexan was wont to label a part of the movement vanilla ISIS, and the more one steps back and examines it, it does seem apparent. Radical Christian Soldiers, marching to save the war on Christmas.

[Gil Bang 25898]

It's minor, but how the fuck did a gay ode to getting cornholed become the theme song of his rallies?

"Fortunate Son" is also ironic as shit, but not as funny.