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Man, I hope Ivanka was never abused, but there has been so much creepy ass shit he has said in public that I feel like I am being hot boxed by Cheech and Chong with the amount of smoke surrounding this issue.
Ick.
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Agreed. It wasn’t any clever scheme that let Trump continually avoid consequences, it was the media and Democrats first not taking the threat seriously, then dropping the ball again and again and again through a combination of cowardice, denial and holier-than-thou civility. I almost can’t blame them for not taking him seriously- it’s easy to forget how ludicrous the idea of him winning felt, fresh off two terms of Obama and before 46% of voters revealed themselves to be not just racist, sexist conservatives, but straight-up Nazis with no morals or standards whatsoever. But the moment he was elected the attacks should have been merciless, honest, and incessant… and everyone in power just treated it like business as usual. He didn’t really have to do anything, everyone around him, even his opponents, did the work for him.
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That framing kind of lets the Republicans off the hook though. After all he is their guy and they do have agency.
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I suppose in theory the Republicans could have held Trump responsible- Democrats have sometimes held their own candidates responsible, after all, and some Republicans made a brief show of opposing Trump before he was in power- but I wouldn’t have held my breath for that even in 2015. The people to hold Trump responsible were never going to be his own party and Fox News. Even back then, we knew they didn’t have the integrity. I’m not trying to excuse them for their behavior or saying it’s okay they caved to MAGA, but I don’t find it anywhere near as inexplicable a failure as that of his opponents. He gave them limitless ammunition and they refused to pull the trigger.
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They didn’t have to hold him responsible in 2015. All they had to do was not support the most corrupt, vile, incompetent, and unqualified candidate in the history of the Presidency. They had plenty of other gross people to choose from and the fact that they landed on Trump is not the fault of the Democrats or the media.
Could Democrats have done more to stop the rise of Trump? Probably. But they weren’t the ones that caused it.
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I could see a Voight-Kampff test to see if they find Trump, and punch-down right wing “humor” in general, as funny.
In on the Joke: The Comedic Trick Trump Uses to Normalize His Behavior
His supporters love it. Critics call it a sign of his autocratic tendencies.
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Agreed, but I was more referring to his ability to avoid any sort of consequences once elected.
Unfortunately, the mechanisms of our government are largely designed around the idea that critical mass of elected officials will be acting in good faith. Take that away, and it all falls apart.
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Or not spent the last few decades making space for him and what he represents… they’ve ACTIVELY courted bigots, fascists, and religious extremists since at least Nixon, in order to keep themselves in power. And pretty much anytime anyone brought this up during that time, they were accused of blowing things out of proportion. Let’s not forget how people got mocked for their concerns over that lovable grandpa Reagan, or that lovable goof Bush II. They GOP, however, kept embracing people ever further to the right, with each new presidency (including in congress). The far right has taken over the party. Maybe the Democrats could have called it out more (many did, and got called out for it, but hey… let’s not facts get in our way here, shall we), and the media could have done better (let’s just ignore the years long war on an independent media that is takes actual journalism seriously, carried out by the GOP and their largest donors, some of who have gone on a buying spree since Reagan deregulated the media)… but at the end of the day, the GOP courted the demographic that Trump represents, and that’s how he won.
So, maybe we really do need to start holding the fascists accountable for being fascists, while they’re trying to actually take over the fucking country instead of tut-tutting at the Democrats yet again, as if they are the ONLY politicians with any kind of fucking agency!!!
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It’s called honor. Something that is slipping away fast.
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Until the democrats strap on a pair of brass knuckles and beat the shit out their opponents it’s tut-tutting or whatever ivory tower enlightened parsing that is, until then it’s just Pete’s Sweaty Balls all over again.
This is a war and democrats are having tea.
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And the GOP is STILL responsible for what they are doing. Full stop… I’m kind of sick of people just ignoring that part…
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This is exactly what I am criticizing the media and Democrats for not doing while Trump was in power. I, personally, do not have a ton of power to hold anyone accountable for anything, besides voting, which of course I do. The whole point of electing representatives is to have them represent us, which most of them did not.
None of what I’ve been discussing has been how Trump won, but rather how after his victory he was normalized by his own party, the media and, yes, even the Democrats. That doesn’t make the whole entire thing from beginning to end the fault of the Democrats and that’s not what I’m claiming, but Trump would not have been able to evade consequences that would instantly end the career of any other politician for so long if Democrats as a party hadn’t treated it as business as usual and if the media hadn’t been so desperate to both-sides everything. Yes, the Republicans could have stopped him too, but we already know why they wouldn’t. What was stopping our side?
Why are the the worst ones in the equation, instead of the actual fascists though. And with the media, it’s not just intransigence on their part, it was an active campaign to kneecap journalism so that it’s no longer an effective counterweight TO fascism itself.
And they bear the biggest moral responsibility for that. But it’s always “the democrats and the media” which does not take into account the larger context of history…
They don’t run the GOP?
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Does this even need to be said? Here, I’ll say it: The Republican party and Republican voters bear the biggest responsibility for electing Trump and thereby enabling his horrible policies and behavior. We are absolutely in agreement about that. I just don’t see how that makes the Democrats immune from all criticism. Just because they couldn’t make the problem vanish with a magic wand doesn’t mean they were powerless.
They need to run the party to criticize it? To point out the inhumanity and vileness of Trump and his policies? To fight against it tooth and nail? The Democrats spent those four years largely treating the Republicans as though they were acting in good faith. I really, really hope those days are finally coming to an end.
I partially agree, but maybe you could elaborate on this part. Seeing, say, NPR normalizing Trump’s “bloodbath” comment this past week makes no sense to me, unless Republicans are the main support for public radio all of a sudden. And it feels like pretty much every major media outlet was doing that all through his administration, even if they weren’t outright cheerleading like Fox News.
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Yes, this is the part that always gets me.
The question is phrased “how could the Democrats let the Republicans get away with this?” instead of “how could the Republicans do this?”
It’s as if every discussion about the crimes of the Third Reich was framed in terms of how ineffective the Widerstand was at stopping their rise to power.
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Yes. The political discourse is choked with people who like to blame everything on the left not opposing fascists in precisely the right stern but loving, gentle but firm way. You can find a million editorials wondering what exactly we did to drive so many people into the arms of a racist misogynist xenophobic criminal without admitting for a moment they might be racist, misogynist, or xenophobic. I don’t think it’s all a bad thing to ask us to remember the support behind Trump is because some people like him.
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