Trump spent $200,000,000 on the election stunt of sending 6,000 troops to the border, then withdrew them before the caravan arrived

It’s important to remember that conservative followers are generally more honest than anyone. Loyal and moral to a fault. Conservative leaders on the other hand… are only conservative so that they can take advantage of the blind loyalty.
Check out the book here: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ about authoritarian followers. It’s free and some great reading.

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♪ ♩ And everybody knows about Donald ⊥rump, goddam! ♩ ♪

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He lies even about the little things, it is compulsive, he is a shallow embodiment of his very name…

It is almost as if we accidentally summoned a demon of dishonesty, sloth, and greed to be president. shouldn’t have rolled a 45…this new blue and red version of d&d is brutal.

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I’ve seen very little evidence of real-world (non-biblical) morality among the rank-and-file modern conservatives I’ve encountered. They will disown their own children over any number of minor transgressions that don’t even directly affect them.

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I suspect that Puerto Rico could probably have used - and could still use - $200M of federal assistance, plus a large body of troops to help restore infrastructure.

It’s probably just a coincidence that PR doesn’t get to vote.

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Ah, the great rich bully “deal maker” at work. Will daddy bail out the country now, too?

Make America a pathetic laughingstock again, D-man!

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Absolutely it’s not like they’ve moved 3 times to begin the state hood process since 1990. And GOP leaders have never described that as a liberal conspiracy to build a permanent advantage in the Senate. And they certainly haven’t avoided bringing it up all costs.

But more seriously they do get to vote in US elections, sort of. But they really only get to participate in primaries, by sending delgates to the party conventions. And one non-voting member to the House of Representatives. That person can serve and vote on committees and vote on procedural rules internal to Congress. But not in floor votes for legislation.

Puerto Ricans are US citizens by birth. And entitled to vote in US elections when they reside in another state. But no residents of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rican or not, can vote directly in Federal elections. Just in primaries and for their non voting house delegate.

It’s pretty shitty. And it’s a pretty big issue in Puerto Rico, and other US territories.

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Are these the same conservative followers that have “Fuck Your Feelings” printed on their shirts and wear them proudly with big ol’ dumb ass smiles on their face? Are those the conservative followers you’re talking about?

Shirt

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“Loyalty” and “morality” are completely different attributes.

I would agree conservatives exhibit tribal loyalty. That’s the core of their authoritarian identity: to cleave to what they are and what they know and fear what they think they are not and what they do not know.

As for “morality,” this is a completely subjective trait. They thought they were “moral” in the 1800s when they supported slavery, in the 1900s when they opposed female suffrage, in the 1950s when they supported Jim Crow, in the 2000s when they opposed marriage equality, in the 2010s when they supported the amoral Trump.

And, conservatives are “more” honest? Honest about their biases, perhaps. But even there, they’ll be intellectually dishonest: eg, censuring liberal “judicial activism” as bad, when their own conservative activism isn’t even acknowledged as such.

I was responding to the thesis that “conservatives are more honest and more moral” and you’re saying I’m being categorical?

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When Mattis said, “We don’t do [political] stunts in this department,” what he meant was they don’t come up with stunts, they just go along with the president’s stunts.

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Plus Space Force, right?

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It seems like they ask, “What Would Jesus Do?” so that they can do the opposite.

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Yes, and thank God it’s Mattis going along with the president’s stunts, and not some apparatchik who doesn’t know when to pull the plug.

You can bet that with Mattis in charge, Trump – just like Nixon in his last days – is inhibited from having an immediate ability to launch a nuclear strike.

But it makes you feel a little better??

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That doesn’t make me feel much better.

Just a little. My biggest concern is that he orange guy can misplace his phone and accidentally tweet on the nuclear football…but that might honestly be a bit of a long shot.

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Involuntarily.

The reason for the granting of US citizenship to Puerto Ricans was so that they could be drafted for WWI.

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The party of fiscal responsibility!

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Well, in retrospect, a ‘Democratic People’s Republic of North America’-style parade in D.C. would probably have cost about a third of this.

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I certainly hope so.

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From my observations, conservative morals includes a tribal xenophobia, greed, extreme resistance to change in a rapidly changing world, and low compassion for the suffering of others. Perhaps they are being honest about it (as the increasing level of acts of racism would attest), but one can hardly call these values in any way good for anyone.

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