Trump's vile candidacy is chemotherapy for the GOP

[TitanTiger 20,708]

Quote

 

What did Donald Trump have left to lose Sunday night? His dignity? Please. His campaign's theme? His Cleveland convention was a mini-Nuremberg rally for Republicans whose three-word recipe for making America great again was the shriek "Lock her up!" This presaged his Banana Republican vow to imprison his opponent.

The St. Louis festival of snarls was preceded by the release of a tape that merely provided redundant evidence of what Trump is like when he is being his boisterous self. Nevertheless, the tape sent various Republicans, who until then had discovered nothing to disqualify Trump from the presidency, into paroxysms of theatrical, tactical and synthetic dismay.

Again, the tape revealed nothing about this arrested-development adolescent that today's righteously recoiling Republicans either did not already know or had no excuse for not knowing. Before the tape reminded the pathologically forgetful of Trump's feral appetites and deranged sense of entitlement, the staid Economist magazine, holding the subject of Trump at arm's-length like a soiled sock, reminded readers of this: "When Mr. Trump divorced the first of his three wives, Ivana, he let the New York tabloids know that one reason for the separation was that her breast implants felt all wrong."

His sexual loutishness is a sufficient reason for defeating him, but it is far down a long list of sufficient reasons. But if it — rather than, say, his enthusiasm for torture even "if it doesn't work," or his ignorance of the nuclear triad — is required to prompt some Republicans to have second thoughts about him, so be it.

For example, Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolinian seeking a third term, represents a kind of Republican judiciousness regarding Trump. Having heard the tape and seen Trump's "apology" (Trump said, essentially: My naughty locker room banter is better than Bill Clinton's behavior), Burr solemnly said: "I am going to watch his level of contrition over the next few days to determine my level of support." North Carolinians will watch with bated breath as Burr, measuring with a moral micrometer, carefully calibrates how to adjust his support to Trump's unfolding repentance. Burr, who is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not received this nugget of intelligence: Contrition is not in Trump's repertoire. Why should it be? His appetites, like his factoids, are self-legitimizing.

Trump is a marvelously efficient acid bath, stripping away his supporters' surfaces, exposing their skeletal essences. Consider Mike Pence, a favorite of what Republicans devoutly praise as America's "faith community." Some of its representatives, their crucifixes glittering in the television lights, are still earnestly explaining the urgency of giving to Trump, who agreed that his daughter is "a piece of ass," the task of improving America's coarsened culture.

Because Pence looks relatively presidential when standing next to Trump — talk about defining adequacy down — some Republicans want Trump to slink away, allowing Pence to float to the top of the ticket and represent Republicanism resurrected. This idea ignores a pertinent point: Pence is standing next to Trump.

He salivated for the privilege of being Trump's poodle, and he expresses his canine devotion in rhetorical treacle about "this good man." What would a bad man look like to pastor Pence?

Still, some journalists, who seem to have no interests beyond their obsession with presidential politics and who illustrate Kipling's principle ("What should they know of England who only England know?"), are so eager to get started on 2020 that they are anointing Pence the GOP's front-runner. Perhaps Republicans will indeed embrace a man who embraced a presidential candidate whose supposed "locker room banter" merely echoed sexual boasts he published in a book.

Today, however, Trump should stay atop the ticket, for four reasons. First, he will give the nation the pleasure of seeing him join the one cohort, of the many cohorts he disdains, that he most despises — "losers." Second, by continuing to campaign in the spirit of St. Louis, he can remind the nation of the useful axiom that there is no such thing as rock bottom. Third, by persevering through Nov. 8 he can simplify the GOP's quadrennial exercise of writing its post-campaign autopsy, which this year can be published November 9 in one sentence: "Perhaps it is imprudent to nominate a venomous charlatan." Fourth, Trump is the GOP's chemotherapy, a nauseating but, if carried through to completion, perhaps a curative experience.

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/4451770-155/george-f-will-trumps-vile-candidacy

 

 

[AUDub 11,424]

George Will sure is optimistic. It's not the party Reagan, Buckley or Bush anymore. As of now, it's the party of Trump, Limbaugh and Coulter. Republicans had better hope they can woo these people back to the center. If they can't, the resulting nativist, white nationalist, regional at best party will not last long.

[homersapien 11,812]

This perfectly summarized my feelings about the "p**** tape":

"His sexual loutishness is a sufficient reason for defeating him, but it is far down a long list of sufficient reasons. But if it — rather than, say, his enthusiasm for torture even "if it doesn't work," or his ignorance of the nuclear triad — is required to prompt some Republicans to have second thoughts about him, so be it."

[AURaptor 1,137]

The things you people call " torture ".

 

so ironic 

[AUDub 11,424]

Don't ever change, Raptor. If you didn't exist, we really would have to invent you.

[TitanTiger 20,708]

2 minutes ago, AURaptor said:

The things you people call " torture ".

 

so ironic 

Yes, we're well aware of your asinine belief that waterboarding isn't torture.

What's even crazier about it is that Trump said he'd be all about torture even if it doesn't work.  He's not about results, he just wants us to get some licks in on them.  Crazy nutjob.

[AURaptor 1,137]

1 minute ago, TitanTiger said:

Yes, we're well aware of your asinine belief that waterboarding isn't torture.

Ok, snowflake

 

[homersapien 11,812]

2 minutes ago, AURaptor said:

The things you people call " torture ".

 

so ironic 

Donald?.....  Is that you?  

 

[quietfan 233]

Quote

"Perhaps it is imprudent to nominate a venomous charlatan."

Ya think??  

[homersapien 11,812]

2 hours ago, Bigbens42 said:

Don't ever change, Raptor. If you didn't exist, we really would have to invent you.

While I'd like to think I'm an imaginative person, that would be a tough assignment. 

The stuff that oozes out of what passes for his brain never ceases to astound me.

[AURaptor 1,137]

 Contrast nearly 3000 Americans dead on 9–11, with a little waterboarding where all the person has to do is just give up some nformation. It's not torture, and it never will be. 

[AUDub 11,424]

18 minutes ago, AURaptor said:

 Contrast nearly 3000 Americans dead on 9–11, with a little waterboarding where all the person has to do is just give up some nformation. It's not torture, and it never will be. 

Yeah. It is. You should man up and give us a demonstration like Hitch did, then we'll see whether you think it's torture or not. 

[TitanTiger 20,708]

54 minutes ago, AURaptor said:

 Contrast nearly 3000 Americans dead on 9–11, with a little waterboarding where all the person has to do is just give up some nformation. It's not torture, and it never will be. 

Using that illogic, anything short of death isn't torture.  Stop being dumb.

[telling tiger 156]

If he ever gets water boarded, I'm rooting for the water.........

[quietfan 233]

I absolutely consider waterboarding to be torture. But personal beliefs aside, Trump did not stop with just waterboarding.  Quoting his own words from a primary debate:   http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/gop-primaries/268530-trump-calls-for-hell-of-a-lot-worse-than-waterboarding

Quote

"I would bring back waterboarding," Trump told Saturday night's debate audience in Manchester, N.H. "And I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding."

FACT: Torture does not work. Tortured persons eventually simply tell their tormentors whatever they think their tormentors want to hear, accurate or not.

FACT: Torture is a violation of both U.S. and international law.  

End of story.

[AURaptor 1,137]

49 minutes ago, quietfan said:

"I would bring back waterboarding," Trump told Saturday night's debate audience in Manchester, N.H. "And I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding."

Well, it's one thing to SAY this,  in public, to give would be terrorists something to think about, but in practice, the US would never DO anything a hell of a lot worse. Nor should it. 

However, the waterboarding we did wasn't "torture" . It worked.  End of  story. 

 

 

[homersapien 11,812]

7 hours ago, AURaptor said:

 Contrast nearly 3000 Americans dead on 9–11, with a little waterboarding where all the person has to do is just give up some nformation. It's not torture, and it never will be. 

You are assuming they have information to give up.

[alexava 6,974]

18 minutes ago, homersapien said:

You are assuming they have information to give up.

i have said this before, here i think. if i KNOW they have info i am all for torture. would try to keep it on the downlow though. 

[homersapien 11,812]

12 minutes ago, alexava said:

i have said this before, here i think. if i KNOW they have info i am all for torture. would try to keep it on the downlow though. 

Even though it doesn't work as well as other techniques? 

[alexava 6,974]

1 minute ago, homersapien said:

Even though it doesn't work as well as other techniques? 

I am not an expert on these techniques. let me simplify (for my benefit, not necessarily yours) purely hypothetical: if i go to the gas station with my kid(s) strapped in the back seat, and step inside for a few seconds to grab a quick drink or sign my gas reciept( i don't make a habit of this but the store by my house the car is just ten feet from the counter) and a person jumps in my car and drives off. Hours later this person is found with my car but kids are gone. I would remove his scrotum and testicles with a pair of toenail clippers one clip at a time while rinsing with gasoline until he told me where my kids are. not just mine but any kids and i would have to KNOW FOR SURE he knew. this may be hard to compare to a similar terrorist activity investigation but i tried to show my degree of certainty i would require to torture. if i have that certainty i have no heart for the perp. i don't know what other techniques you speak of.

[homersapien 11,812]

Your last sentence reveals your need to educate yourself on this subject.

Indulging in emotional hypotheticals doesn't help.

[TexasTiger 13,556]

The best thing that can happen to Republicans is for Trump to take his following and reject the Republican Party and label. Then they can try to become a sane center right party again. There will be pain and loss of power in the short run but power without principles is pretty empty.

[AURaptor 1,137]

7 hours ago, homersapien said:

You are assuming they have information to give up.

assuming nothing. On the grand total of 3 it was used, yeah, they had intel. And it was given up.

[AUUSN 823]

15 hours ago, Bigbens42 said:

Yeah. It is. You should man up and give us a demonstration like Hitch did, then we'll see whether you think it's torture or not. 

I know how to administer it. I volunteer to give Raptor the pleasure of it. I'll even travel to him and periscope it.

It is no doubt torture. Period.

[AURaptor 1,137]

34 minutes ago, AUUSN said:

I know how to administer it. I volunteer to give Raptor the pleasure of it. I'll even travel to him and periscope it.

It is no doubt torture. Period.

 Not the way it was used in Gitmo. 

 And again, you are missing the point. They had the option of not being water boarded. And yet they chose to remain silent and not give up their information.  Until they did. 

 

 This is such a tired and useless conversation. It's been beaten to death worse than a rented mule.