mikwut wrote:I don't understand how minimizing referring to the President from the beginning of his first term, as traitor to this country, and it is false, doesn't deserve very strong replies and rebuke. It does. There are valid criticisms that can be made like the President going too broad in attempt to puritanize the press, but for the press to not clean up its own house is not something I accept.
... the general public in a Democratic Republic voted him into office and the Press refers to him as traitor and Puppet of Putin. That vile accusation in a country like ours was indeed unproven yet the press continually attempted to foist that charge on the "people".
mikwut, yours is the expected indignant rationalization of bad behavior for
one party in this dynamic, while lambasting the other. However, this is arguing a juvenile perspective, rationalizing the crappiest possible behavior from a man who sits at the top of our government, in a unique position of power and publicity unmatched by any other entity. And the best you can do here is to say that because some folks called him names, that he is justified in making a continuous public spectacle of accusation, exaggeration, lies, insults, and tantrums, being continually bent to portray his Office as one of
butthurt vindictiveness controlled by an emotionally-stunted man-baby.
Again, I'd refer back to the example of the previous Administration, in which President Blackenstein was the continual target of the self-identified Most Popular Cable News Channel in the Nation for 8 years (more than twice as long as Trump has endured the press so far). That network hosted commentator after commentator accusing that President of open racism towards whites, unchecked hostility, a foreign-sourced agenda ('a.k.a. 'traitor'), of being a secret Muslim in religion and sympathy, un-American, a literal foreigner who did not deserve to be President, and - in one case - voiced the opinion that he should be literally arrested for criticizing Trump (Dobbs). In the midst of this, how did Evil President Barack
Hooo-sain Obama react? Was it anything even
remotely like the immature twitter-rants and public tantrums voiced by the current occupier of the office?
Geez, how the hell did Obama
ever hold it together? All I can say is that I'm glad that he was able to exhibit the kind of grace that our current Prez is incapable of displaying under any circumstances.
mikwut wrote:And then you liken legitimate complaints against the President’s behavior as accusing him of being a pedophile? Hmm.
Likened to in taint and seriousness. I likened it to falsely calling him a traitor. And I stand by it. What is the legitimate complaint you are referring to because I was analogizing it with traitor to his country.
Sorry, mikwut, that dog won't hunt. You know that the word, 'traitor', can carry a scope of meaning ranging from simple disagreement, to more serious pejorative implications of disloyalty, to a literal legal definition. The same cannot be said for the term, 'pedophile'. There is no comparing the two in intent and effect.
Did you see any legal accusations of 'traitor' leveled at Trump in the impeachment hearings? No?
Even as that's the case, I don't take too much offense from a situation wherein some folks called Trump a 'traitor', in the pejorative sense. The man stood on stage and publicly rebuked, to an international audience, the efforts of multiple government intelligence operations and their personnel - folks who have arguably put more of their life and effort into protecting this country than Trump ever has or will - by siding with the dictator running a country that has been our ideological and military opponent for decades. While Trump could have had disagreements with the idea that the Russians attempted interference within the process, voicing his dissent in that way, with that audience, was not the correct way to voice his flippant dismissal of those conclusions, and to the apparent joy of Putin. Simply put, that act displayed an outstanding amount of public disloyalty to the process and its people, and that can arguably be termed 'traitorous' in the pejorative.
mikwut wrote:Then hysteria you say?!??! Hysteria?!?!?? I am the one who posted about hysteria? I did not produce hysteria. I posted against it. This is a madhouse sometimes. He is not puppet of Putin Ok. That is hysteria. He is a lot of critical things. But he is not that. That is hysteria. It is bufoonery.
Great examples of
hysteria and
buffoonery can be seen at any Trump 'rally'. Watch the guy behind the podium, and listen carefully to what he says. In the meantime,
this also approaches
hysteria and buffoonery:
... the media did indeed flout such divisive rhetorical devices as the President is a puppet of Putin, a literal traitor to his country the equivalent in politics of being called a pedophile extensively, relentlessly for over two years and had no evidence to be publicly making such accusations.
It'd seem that what you're incensed about is exactly the sort of behavior promoted - in spades and every day, from the highest pulpit in the land - by the fellow you're defending as 'justified' for doing so.
Anyhow ... Maybe someday, the country won't be headed up by an emotionally-stunted individual bent on turning politics and the public discourse into what we see in a banana republic. Maybe someday, the nation will once again see leadership from someone who does not feel a need to run 'rallies' where he appeals solely to a limited portion of the voting population, feeds them rage, spreads falsehoods and outright lies, insults folks who he disagrees with, and calls out for the arrest of folks who are political opponents. Hey, maybe someday we'll even see someone in charge that doesn't openly praise dictators, side publicly with the Russians against our own intelligence service, and who isn't so fearful and brazen as to try to coerce foreign nations into manufacturing 'scandals' against other Americans for the sake of his own political convenience... all while tweeting out asinine public rants and insults 30 times a day on his cell.
You can continue to defend that kind of behavior. I can't join you in that work.