Thursday, September 5, 2024

Thoughts and prayers: How to stop school shootings.

Republicans complain:
Kamala Harris is not being specific about what she will do as president.
Fox News reports that Donald Trump describes -- indeed, "pinpoints" -- how he will solve the intractable problems facing America. 

Transcript:

Hannity: "We had this terrible shooting in Georgia. Our prayers are with our friends in Georgia . . . What is going on?"

Trump: "It's a sick and angry world for a lot of reasons and we're going to make it better. We're going to heal our world. We're going to get rid of all these wars that are starting all over the place because of incompetence of American leadership and we're going to make it better. You know, Viktor Orban made a statement, 'Bring Trump back, you're not going to have any problems,' he was very strong about that. 

So we're hopefully going to do very well, we have an election coming up, and, you know they say 60 [days] but it starts in Delaware and North Carolina a lot sooner than that, so we're going to be, I think we're going to be very well set up to do a great job, and do we love Pennsylvania, do we love it?"

Audience: [Cheers and applause, breaking into a chant "USA, USA, USA."] 

That's it. That is how Trump solves the high school massacre problem. Put him in office and everything will be great. That isn't pinpointing. Instead, Trump drops hints.

He cites Viktor Orban, the ethno-nationalist strong-man leader of Hungary. Orban's leadership has been characterized by curtailment of press freedom, capture of the judiciary,  suppression of opposition candidates and parties, and one-party rule. Orban calls it "illiberal democracy" in which tolerance for multiple ethnicities, cultures, and viewpoints is replaced by a Hungarian Christian nationalism. 

The audience is enthusiastic. Trump tapped into a vein of fear, resentment, and unease over the pace and nature of immigration. Democrats failed to recognize the problem and address it. They had time to do so, but dithered, denied it, and dismissed it as racism rather than something more benign, like patriotism, a desire for orderliness, and self-respect. That gave wide space for Trump to make the issue central.

But isn't Trump a huckster, a felon, a tax thief, a sexual assaulter, and a danger to democracy? The answer is irrelevant to a great many people. A near-majority of Americans think that if Democrats are too squeamish and rule-bound and bend-over-backward tolerant to take effective action about the problem of runaway immigration, then they will vote for a charismatic lawbreaker and demagogue, if that is what it takes to get something done. 

Orban isn't a warning to that audience of Americans. He is a model.


Here is a live clip of this section of the town hall. Copy and paste it:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-vows-heal-our-world-after-fatal-georgia-school-shooting-sick-angry



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9 comments:

Mc said...

Don Old is a conman.
If you don't see that then you're the mark.

It's really that simple.

He said he could fix everything in 2017. Instead, he flopped.

Mike Steely said...

In our relatively brief history, the U.S. has committed its share of atrocities against Native Americans, Blacks and some other countries. We even engaged in a Civil War. Lurking just beneath our veneer of civilization, anger and hatred seem to be an integral part of the human character. After passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we seemed to have it pretty much under control, but Trump has made it popular again. He does have a unique ability to bring out the worst in people. He’s transformed the Republican Party into something Victor Orban would be proud of: a model of right-wing populism working to dismantle the pillars of democracy.

Michael Trigoboff said...

The crucial issue is the ongoing failure to get immigration under control.

When enough voters care, whoever is in power and fails to fix the problem gets kicked out at the next election. And this process repeats over and over until someone finallygets the job done.

When the voters get fed up enough, they begin to care less and less about how the job is done, only that it gets done. At that point, Viktor Orban becomes an irrelevant side issue.

Ed Cooper said...

It's often said an honest person cannot be conned;
I believe that pertains equally to the Electorate as well. Thare has always been a strain of bigotry and racism in this Country, since before the founding and it boiled to the surface during the War between the States, bubbled along during Jim Crow and got suppressed somewhat with Brown V. Board of Education and then the Civil Rights and Voting Acts of the early 60s. But it's always been festering, and Republican picking at the scab with the election of Ronnie Rayguns, but it took a TV FlimFlam huckster to fully rip that scab off and give the evil underneath the impetus it needed to boil out. November 5th of this year we are going to find out if the Republic can survive and truly attain those lofty goals in the Declaration and the Constitution.

Mike said...

Yes, in the 1860s, the South didn’t care how the institution of slavery was preserved, only that it be preserved. It’s a fine example that the ‘how’ does matter. Far-right fear, anger and hatred are never “an irrelevant side issue.” If we lose the principles of equality and the rule of law that are the foundation of our republic, we lose everything.

Anonymous said...

Oversimplifying and overpromising is the hallmark of the carnival barker or ad-man as your friend Tony has written. Let’s face it: the challenges facing today’s world are unprecedented by any measure. There are no simple answers, only options and compromises. But good faith compromise these days is seen as weakness and “selling out”. Those who follow that logic are Trump’s most ardent “believers”

John C said...

Let's see - regarding his response to the shooting: According to the Gun Violence Archive, during Trump's presidency, there were 34 mass casualty shootings, with 274 deaths and over 600 wounded. Many in Texas and Florid with the most uh... 'liberal' (there - I said it) gun laws. There have been recent posts claiming that there were no mass shootings under Trump. The "Truth" is whatever you choose to believe I guess.

Michael Trigoboff said...

Democracy is rule by the voters; the “how” matters to them until it doesn’t.

Mike said...

In our democratic republic, the "how" matters if it's unconstitutional. If we remain one, Trump will receive jail time for how he tried to stay in power whether his cult likes it or not.