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Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse
- Thread starter CdnGuy
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Given these contradictions, which are no secret to anyone, how did Trump mean for his message to be understood? Trump is not a fool. He knows that he has little chance of winning the election in November by normal means. By sending this message, he is conceding the election to his Democratic rival Joe Biden, and has begun the search for some other way of staying in office. His tweet is intended not for those who disagree with him, but for those are willing to follow him into tyranny.
In his tweet, Trump has made it clear that the task at hand is to keep him in office in some other way than by election. He knows that he lacks the power to delay the election himself. What he is seeking with this tweet are allies in the United States, or for that matter abroad, who will help to create a situation where an election seems impossible.
The tweet of July 30 is thus a turning point. Before that date, Trump supporters could tell themselves that they were involved in a normal presidential campaign. After that date, supporters of Trump must confront his open contention that the election in November will not count. This raises the question of just what it now means to be on the side of the US president. It means, of course, to be against democracy, and in favor of authoritarianism.
Anyone who supports Trump after July 30 has made a moral choice: for a person, and against the American constitution. Everyone who works for Trump’s campaign, donates money to it, or plans to vote for him has been put on notice: they are all now actors in a charade, keeping up appearances until November, providing cover for the real action, which will be somewhere else. Those three question marks at the end of the tweet are a signal that someone should find a non-democratic way of keeping Trump in power. There is notable agreement among American thinkers, from a leading left-wing public intellectual to a leading right-wing professor of law, that Trump’s tweet was “fascistic.” I have written in this vein myself. But this may be most profoundly true in a sense that thus far has been overlooked.
As English historian Ian Kershaw showed, the Nazi style was “working toward the Führer”: understanding a message from a leader not as a series of logical propositions or empirical observations, but as a guide to how the world should be, as a hint as to what followers should do. In this case, the hint is that the elections should be spoiled: a hint that can be taken by Trump’s postmaster general, or by republican state legislatures, or by Americans with guns.
They are unlikely to prevail, however. It has taken a while, but by now many Americans, even if they do not quite understand the deeper meaning of Trump’s style, are aware that they need to be prepared for an election unlike any other. Anyone who tries to do Trump’s bidding and spoil the election will regret it. That is the other meaning of those three question marks: Trump is hoping that someone else will break the law so that he may stay in power, but he has no intention of taking responsibility for what happens next. He will leave it to others to cripple American democracy so that he may live in comfort. If Russia tries this, it will almost certainly face the full wrath of a Biden administration. If Americans try to “work toward the Führer,” their leader will betray them in the end.
That is the one way in which Trump is perfectly consistent: everything is about him, and everyone is to be sacrificed to him. Unlike the traditional fascists, he dreams of no grand and terrible cause. He simply expects others to suffer on his behalf.
The next 73 days are going to be very difficult for Stephen Hahn.
As the Nov. 3 election nears, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner can expect intensifying pressure from President Trump to approve a vaccine or a drug to combat Covid-19. Desperate to win and angry at criticism of his handling of the pandemic, Trump twice this week complained that the “deep state” may cause a delay.
But on Saturday morning, Trump also singled out the FDA by tweeting, without evidence to support his claim, that the agency is “making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics.” To make sure the FDA head got the message, Trump tagged Hahn at the end of the tweet.
These sorts of self-serving remarks are terribly wrongheaded, because they continually raise the specter of political interference with a key agency during a severe public health crisis. Who would trust a vaccine that is being rushed out the door just so Trump can say he delivered what everyone wants as soon as possible? His tweets are about his re-election, not our well-being.
For Hahn, however, this creates a different kind of crisis, because the political appointee has to work harder than ever to ensure the FDA remains independent.
“One of the great things about FDA is that decisions are made by full-time civil servants without conflicts,” former FDA commissioner Robert Califf tweeted in response to Trump’s tweet.
But Hahn’s track record gives me pause, and I’m not so sure he can stand up to Trump.
Too funny! A man died, & went to Heaven. As he stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gate, he saw a huge wall of Clocks above him, He asked, "What are those Clocks?"
St. Peter answered, "Those are Lie-Clocks, everyone on earth has a Lie-Clock. Everytime you Lie the hands on your Clock will move."
"Oh, said the man. "Whose Clock is that?"
St. Peter answered, "That's Mother Teresa's, the hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a Lie." Incredible said the man. St. Peter said this Clock is "Abraham Lincoln's Clock, the hands have moved twice, telling him Abe' told only 2 Lies in his entire life."
Then the man asked, "Where is Trump's Clock?" St. Peter said, "his Clock is in Jesus' office, He's using it as a ceiling fan...
St. Peter answered, "Those are Lie-Clocks, everyone on earth has a Lie-Clock. Everytime you Lie the hands on your Clock will move."
"Oh, said the man. "Whose Clock is that?"
St. Peter answered, "That's Mother Teresa's, the hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a Lie." Incredible said the man. St. Peter said this Clock is "Abraham Lincoln's Clock, the hands have moved twice, telling him Abe' told only 2 Lies in his entire life."
Then the man asked, "Where is Trump's Clock?" St. Peter said, "his Clock is in Jesus' office, He's using it as a ceiling fan...
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