Questions for our American friends

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by awboy33

Short answer is no one knows what he is going to do or say. In some ways that is good, but it can be very embarrassing. I personally wish he would quit tweeting. Whether America is a laughing stock or not is a matter of opinion. Many people have liked what he has done. He is following a little bit of what Reagan did with the media, and that was taking his message straight to the people rather than relying on the media to disseminate information. This was one reason why the media was so against Reagan and is possibly one reason why they are against Trump.

My personal opinion on much of the reporting about him is a case of "the boy who cried wolf". Much of the media has been so focused on trying to find dirt or come sort of scandal involving him or his family, that they have reported some events as factual that ended up being false. Many people have stopped believing the media entirely. If you are CNN and you have liberal news groups like Vox and Salon telling you that you are out of line or got something wrong because you are so blinded by your animosity that you cannot even begin to appear objective, it is time to make some foundational changes to how you report.

I totally agree that the rage of the medias is totally counterproductive.
BUT honestly, this president is a caricature of a leader. It's very difficult to trust in him.
His attitude looks terribly doubtful. Sometimes he acts like Mussolini.

I was not a fan of George W Bush Jr, but at least he seemed to look... normal, not very clever, but normal.

Donald (I'll call him by his first name ) seems to be a really really narcissistic and megalomaniac man.
This is very worrying.

USA has lost a lot of its credibility.
Damned you had other Republican candidates... Why this clown?

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by diamelsx

I find it kinda humorous that people are fighting so hard to remember and celebrate traitors to the country. Usually those people get erased from history. But looking at that situation I say the black community had little to do with it. Sure the fought like hell to get it done but for them to get that done without outside help would be like a fly pushing an elephant up a hill. The black community could not even get their own youth to come out and vote in the last election. There were other forces at play that wanted this and wanted the black community to take the credit. I say this cause I know politicans will not move to wipe their ass without their donors approval but now they are breaking their neck to do this. Somebody looking to benefit off of this but does not want their name attached that is what I am seeing.

I don't know that the black community is all that much more organized than the white community. There are various groups pursuing their own agendas, but the community at large seems to be unable to reign in criminals, prevent the sexual exploitation of minors, combat addictions, etc.

One of the statues in New Orleans commemorated an 1874 riot by white supremacists. Another commemorated General P.G.T. Beauregard who was a pretty inept commander. Reading up on Jefferson Davis, it is surprising to discover how widely he was disliked within the Confederacy during its brief existence. One must admit that the rebellion would likely have been suppressed much earlier if not for the skillful generalship of Robert E. Lee, but that judgment is clouded by the ineptness of his opponents prior to Grant.

In reality, the country has been quite tolerant in allowing people to openly display symbols of treason and rebellion. It would be quite in order to prosecute Confederate flag wavers or perhaps even shoot them on sight. If I were a black man, it would be awfully tempting to do so.

[easyed]

Taking down monuments to wrong thinking is not re-writing history. Actually the history taught to me was way off base. I was taught the war was not so much about slavery but people just wanting to govern themselves. And I'm not even from the South.

Lincolns death pretty much diluted most of what could have happened. Johnson may have actually been pro-slavery. Southern Democrats spent the next hundred years trying to explain away the horror that was slavery. Those monuments were erected by people who tried to romanticize bravery and honor. There's no honor in fighting to keep someone else in bondage. Americans have long missed the mark on some aspects of our own history. What do we think the Alamo was fought over? Not what they taught me in school.

[Puhbear69]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

[...]

USA has lost a lot of its credibility.
Damned you had other Republican candidates... Why this clown?

Sure ... unfortunately.

The others were some kind of (I think unelectable) "other clowns" too. (Just follow the posts of 'scoundrel' in one of those "US presidential" threads).

(And the US are having more than those 2 parties too, everybody is talking about, one couldn't believe it.).

[haroldeye]

In reality, the country has been quite tolerant in allowing people to openly display symbols of treason and rebellion. It would be quite in order to prosecute Confederate flag wavers or perhaps even shoot them on sight. If I were a black man, it would be awfully tempting to do so.

Very strictly speaking what you call the Revolution was a rebellion and the Southern states had every right to voluntarily withdraw from a union that they had voluntarily joined. They were not treasonous because they were acting within the law and within the terms of their own legal codes.

[Sir Honkers]

If the Democrats had put up Bernie Sanders as their candidate would he have had a realistic chance of winning?
I like what I read of him, but then I admit to being a commie, pinko, tree hugging, lefty anarchist who can't wait for the revolution to come so we can put all the Political Conservatives and Capitalist Running Dogs up against the wall and shoot them comrades.

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by loosegoose

If the Democrats had put up Bernie Sanders as their candidate would he have had a realistic chance of winning?

I can't answer to this question and it's an interesting one.

But just one point, in all the European democracies, Hillary would have been the President. I don't know about Australia, Canada and NZ.

As European... Trump is not a real president. He's a TOTAL joke.

His behaviour and the way how he became the President.
Unbelievable.

[Puhbear69]

Originally Posted by loosegoose

If the Democrats had put up Bernie Sanders as their candidate would he have had a realistic chance of winning?

I like what I read of him, but then I admit to being a commie, pinko, tree hugging, lefty anarchist who can't wait for the revolution to come so we can put all the Political Conservatives and Capitalist Running Dogs up against the wall and shoot them comrades.

Maybe!

This vote 2016 had been clearly an Anti-Hillary-Clinton vote. I think not because she is a woman; because she is Hillary. The FBI investigations against her gave her the rest. She was so unpopular as a person, that it would have been better for her to give up - in fortune to Bernie Sanders.
But - what's important in the US - she had been able to collect more funds as him. He earned much less publicity through all the media than Hillary.
That's obvious, because Bernie Sanders had to step a lot of people on the feet (the Wall Street for example), explaining to ordinary people what went wrong in the US.

While he was vilified in the US as a "commie", over here in Europe he would have been a "boringly normal Social - Democrat".

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by Puhbear69

Maybe!

This vote 2016 had been clearly an Anti-Hillary-Clinton vote. I think not because she is a woman; because she is Hillary.

If Trump looks as a dangerous megalomaniac, Hillary doesn't look psychologically very clean too.
But that's the same with Macron in France. He doesn't look as crazy as Trump, but....

Your German president seems to be a real President. Clever, mentally stable. You are a lucky people.

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by haroldeye

In reality, the country has been quite tolerant in allowing people to openly display symbols of treason and rebellion. It would be quite in order to prosecute Confederate flag wavers or perhaps even shoot them on sight. If I were a black man, it would be awfully tempting to do so.

Very strictly speaking what you call the Revolution was a rebellion and the Southern states had every right to voluntarily withdraw from a union that they had voluntarily joined. They were not treasonous because they were acting within the law and within the terms of their own legal codes.

It must be remembered that the people of the United States assembled in Constitutional Conventions ratified the U.S. Constitution. This method was deliberately chosen by the framers of the new constitution to make clear that the power of the federal government derived from the people at large and the state governments were not a party to it. Of course, the constitution itself makes explicit that the federal government is superior to the state governments.

Andrew Jackson had made it clear during his administration that talk of "nullification" and "secession" was treasonous. He established the precedent that the federal government would use armed force against any state government that attempted to assert such imaginary rights. It is extremely doubtful that Jackson would have exercised the restraint and spirit of conciliation demonstrated by Lincoln and Grant. 'Jackson would have the final words a few days later when a visitor from South Carolina asked if Jackson had any message he wanted relayed to his friends back in the state. Jackson’s reply was:

"Yes I have; please give my compliments to my friends in your State and say to them, that if a single drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hand on engaged in such treasonable conduct, upon the first tree I can reach.[68]" '

quoted from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_Crisis